This is how it goes when I entertain:

Last night was sentimental for me. I could get away with calling my third child "the baby" while she was a year old, even if it was a year and eleven months. My husband and I do not plan on having more children, there's not even a "maybe baby" in our future, and so this is it, the bittersweet departure from babyhood as my daughter turns two.

The last time the big plastic yellow and white 2 candle will adorn a birthday cake in our home. While I could watch her take in the Happy Birthday song every day for the rest of my life I admit, I want her to stay little. What will I do when I can't cradle her 24 pounds in my arms anymore?

My two older kids are in grade school, but she is still home with me. I still stroll her to and from school everyday to pick up her siblings, I still give naps, I still cut food into small pieces. Her growing older leaves me at an impasse, just like when someone refuses second helpings of my food.

Well, I'm just going to have to make more irresistible food. I'm just going to have to hang on to every second of food and family while I can. Because I promise you this - the most special occasions in life are made better with food. For my special occasions, I swear by pasta – it feeds scores of hungry celebrators.

Like I change the themes of my kid's birthday parties, I vary what goes onto the pasta and into the sauces. An Elmo party calls for a deeply red Marinara sauce. A Winnie the Pooh party inspires me to use honey in my pasta salad. To make pasta more irresistible, to make sure no one refuses, I started making homemade sauces with the best ingredients I could get my hands on. I started roasting fresh vegetables to toss with pasta and covered both with freshly grated cheese. Or I bought the absolute best ready made sauces I could find and added ingredients that heightened the taste experience.

To keep the memories of special occasions accessible for my family, I've got reels of video and shoe boxes full of pictures waiting to be scrap booked. But I know, I am certain, my pasta sauce recipe will be etched into memory deeper than the cartoon character on the paper plates and napkins at my daughter's birthday party. The marinara stains on the pages of my scrapbooks will tell a delicious story.


Basic Tomato Sauce

1 lb. fresh or 1 large can (organic if you can find them) tomatoes
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
Diced or pureed onion
Minced garlic
1-2 tbsp. brown sugar (or white)
1 bay leaf
Couple splashes of red wine or balsamic vinegar (red wine will also work)
Optional: diced carrots and celery

Turn up the heat. Place the pot on the burner and heat the pan.
Add ¼ cup of the olive oil.
Turn the heat down to medium.
Sweat the onion, and then add the garlic.
Sweat the onion and garlic together long enough to get a good aroma rising from the pot. Then add the tomatoes.
Next, add the bay leaf and the sugar and the additional ¼ cup of olive oil.
Add a couple splashes of vinegar last.
Let the sauce cook over medium heat until it looks done to you.
Remove bay leaf prior to serving.

Pesto Pasta with Pine Nuts & Artichoke Hearts

1 package (16 oz.) whole wheat pasta such as Penne
2/3 cup pine nuts
2 cups drained artichoke hearts in oil, chopped roughly
1 1/2 cups store-bought Pesto Sauce
Grated Parmesan cheese

Cook pasta according to package directions.
Toast pine nuts over medium-low heat in large skillet.
When pasta is cooked al dente, drain and add to skillet with pine nuts.
Add artichoke hearts to skillet.
Mix pasta, pine nuts and artichoke hearts well.
Add pesto sauce, blend.
When pasta, pesto, pine nuts and artichoke hearts are blended well, top with Parmesan.