Worth every penny!
I am in the final stages of packing my suitcases. I'm only wearing boxer briefs, in the dead of winter, so I'm freezing as I collect my miscellaneous socks and underwear, shove my brand new Hoyas and Redskins hoodies into my bag and contemplate my mental checklist (I had not quite reached the Pat-Down stage). Then my mother enters the room. It is normally around this time in the process, a few hours removed from departure, that she suggests I take some of the copious leftover food from the holiday celebrations back on the plane with me. I'm grouchy because I stayed up too late and I can't find my phone charger. I grumble that I don't want any of the leftovers, and even if I did, I can't fit anything else in my bag. Neither of those statements is true; as soon as I get back to my apartment I'm going to devour that lasagna, and we both know that with some minimal rearranging I could fit a lot more stuff in my bag, and like so many other things that I'm capable of doing but haven't done, it comes down to the fact that I haven't tried hard enough.
Among the food items that I take along with me (lasagna, brownies, gingerbread people, a block of my favorite horseradish cheese), she includes a jar of Rao's Homemade All Natural, Premium Quality Arrabiata Fra Diavolo Sauce; we just call it Rao's (rhymes with cows, at least how we said it.). "Mom, you beautiful bastard! I am unworthy of your love." I think to myself. I can't show how pleased I am with this discovery, because that would mean that she wins and is right as always, but on the inside I'm doing a Tiger Woods fist pump, because Rao's is unbelievable. I packed it safely away deep in my luggage between some of my thicker clothing.
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I never learned how to cook, mostly because my favorite food, pasta, requires no cooking. I'd imagine most chefs or anyone that knows their way around the kitchen wouldn't consider dropping dry linguine into boiling water, or placing an Italian sausage on a pan "cooking". But while I'm no expert, I am very particular about my pasta. For instance, I only do linguine or penne; Fettuccine is too thick to slurp, and I refuse to touch "angel hair" because I think it tastes like slime. I also know that the secret to any great homemade pasta, more important than even the pasta itself, is the sauce.
Thin and gross. I won't eat you.
I'm convinced that I'm the first person ever to buy a jar of Rao's; I was in high school I think, perusing the sauce aisle as my mother waited at the deli counter. I glanced over the mid-shelf stuff indifferently, the safe Barillas and Bertolli's, the lumpier Classicos, and the incomprehensible Newman's Own. At the time this was the sauce bracket in which my family operated. My earliest memories are of us as Prego family, which was fine as long as it wasn't Ragu, but as we grew as a family our tastes grew as well. And once again we were at a sauce-roads. We needed something to shake things up, and then I saw it, on the top shelf holding dominion over all other sauces, with a laughable $9.99 price tag on it. At first I was outraged, a ten dollar jar of tomato sauce? Where do you get off?! Even more shocking was the Rao's was parked on the high end shelf between one sauce endorsed by Francis Ford Coppola and another by Paul Sorvino, two Italian American film legends, and their sauces were cheaper than Rao's! When my mom found me I showed her the jar. "Ten dollars?" she said dubiously, "Well this better be the best damn tomato sauce in the world".
I've never been to Italy, so it's hard to prove Rao's world ranking. I do know, without a doubt, that it is the best tomato sauce you can buy in a store, and frankly I would put Rao's up against any of your favorite Italian restaurants (for any LMU people reading this, C&O's too). There are several different varieties of Rao's, but the Arrabiata is in its own league; it's one of the few Arrabiata's I've enjoyed where I didn't need extra pepper flakes, Sorvino and Coppola notwithstanding.
The fiery kick is what you come for, but the texture and consistency are what set it apart. To appreciate this element of Rao's, you have to understand the cheaper brands. Most of the cheaper brands tend to be way, way too thick, which can lead to clumpy, uneven distribution and, worst of all, burning. Ragu is notorious for burning quickly, among its many other inadequacies. Rao's has a balanced and delightful simmer about it, and because of its superior fluidity and bold flavor only a small ladle is required. With bland Ragu and the like, you can't even taste it without piling it on, which goes against the principles of subtlety that one should always follow with tomato sauce.
Since that fateful day in our local grocery store Rao's has been part of the family. We can't ever go back, so we keep an emergency arsenal of around ten jars in our pantry at all times. It is a staple of my Mom's Christmas lasagna. My grandma had a spaghetti recipe she hadn't altered in decades, until we found Rao's. You can make it into Bolognese, throw some sausages in it, seafood, shellfish, whatever you want. You can achieve your Barefoot Contessa dreams today! For ten bucks, well...
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Now I'm unpacking, warmer, but still grouchy after a particularly nauseating flight and cab ride. I open my suitcase to only to find a sea of red; my Rao's, God bless it, has exploded.
Panic sets in as the prospect of laundering my entire wardrobe becomes very real."No one told me this would happen!" I whisper to myself pitifully. Thankfully, I suppose, I find out that the sauce has miraculously avoided all of my clothing...except of course my brand new Hoyas and Redskins hoodies, which were ruined (The damaged hoodies proved to be an omen. Both of my teams would lose in embarrassing fashion the following weekend. I blame myself). I had lost my beloved Rao's, but it could've been much worse, and as I cleaned up the mess and licked my fingers clean, I was just glad it wasn't Ragu.
RAO'S > EVERYTHIN
Reread this several times. So f-ing funny. Sauce-roads.
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