Instead of making meat sauce by frying the onion and garlic first with a little fresh sage and rosemary, and then adding the ground pork and beef to brown, and then finally the whole plum tomatoes, tonight, I made a soffritto to start the sauce. Finely chopped carrots and celery and onion, sizzling together with half a head of garlic still in tact, seared on its flat side before its friends hit the pan. Cook the soffritto, and then cook it some more. It should be nearly melting and every edge caramelized to the color of burnt sugar. It’s true that it takes time.
But it is only with time, that the carrots and celery transform themselves into the essence of deep, rich flavor. A bowl of raw vegetables, no more than the kind that everybody makes and nobody eats at a party given half an hour in the pan, become a definition of deliciousnes.