Grub Street

 On the unstoppable appeal of lasagna:

Hillary Sterling, chef-partner at Vic’s restaurant in Noho, made a lasagna. It was the first lasagna that Sterling had ever tackled as a professional chef. These days, she spends mornings alone in the kitchen with her pasta-production guy, and on November 3, they needed a project to take their minds off the possibility of a second Trump term. So besciamella, Bolognese, tomato sauce, and yards of fresh pasta sheets it was. And it worked. The repetitive motion of spreading ragù across noodle seemed to calm them. Several hours later, they hoisted the first batch out of the oven: a judiciously sauced, crunchy-topped, 13-layer knockout that would make Garfield plotz. Now lasagna is a permanent part of Vic’s menu rotation and also, presumably, of Sterling’s stress-reduction regimen.

The Garfield bit got a legit LOL. 13 layers! Yowza. I very rarely - if ever - order lasagna at a restaurant because I'm wary of them putting ricotta and a bunch of strange shit in there. I want pasta, cheese, meat, sauce, period. 

"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), “didn't you write about lasagna in one of your very first posts back in 2005?" 

Sigh. YES faithful readers, yes I did:

1) LASAGNA - and by this I mean "Xmastime Lasagna": 2 lbs cheese, 5 lbs of ground beef/sausage, and a jar of Ragu. Don't gimme no damn ricotta or spinach crap, and don't turn your nose up at Ragu. I've tried many many many homemade sauces that people slave over. They're all very good, and I admire their efforts, but I have yet to desire anything more than Ragu. And now they got a million varieties anyway; I like the Italian Sausage & Cheese jar. This is funny, since I mix it with enough Italian sausage/cheese to give you instant gout. My new trick is to use some of the grease from the meat after browning it - hey, we're making Xmastime Lasagna here. It adds incredible flavor - you may drop dead at the end, but what a way to go. My favorite memory of this is a few years back I was house-sitting for Will & Gina and my buddy Op came over and I made this; I had so much meat stuffed in the fucker that to get the 3rd layer on top I had to practically sit on it like you would an overstuffed suitcase. Man. Can still taste. Accompany with bread, a gallon of milk and a 14-hour nap.