Are You Ready for the Summer? Are You Ready for the Good Times?

Some readers of a certain age may recognize the title of this post as lyrics from the theme song to the movie "Meatballs", a coming-of-age-B-Movie-late-night-comedy-classic.

Bill Murray may have starred. He's wonderful, but I hardly care. I want to talk MEATBALLS.

Ah, meatballs. I love them whether they are Swedish, Italian, or Turkish. I dated a guy who requested I put meatballs on his birthday cake. How that relationship went south, I'll never know.... Meatballs? Birthday cake? WAS HE READING MY MIND???

But I digress. You see, there was a time when I chopped vegetables and made meatballs for an Italian restaurant. I made meatballs 30 and 40 POUNDS at a time. I hated making those meatballs. I also pulled some front-of-the-house (FOH) shifts. One night, when the dinner rush had died down, and the responsibilities of the FOH staff was not much more than watching the clock until closing time, I realized it had been hours since the staff meal. I was really hungry. I went to the line, asked Julio to throw a meatball and some vegetables in my bowl. Then I walked right past the marinara and helped myself to a ladle of buerre blanc to go over the whole shootin' match.

Save for the buerre blanc, a strange detour from marinara, the meatball's usual sidekick, this was not a fancy meal. But oh, my word! Was it good!

I ate my meatball, veggies, and buerre blanc every night shift I worked for the next 3 years. It remains a favorite meal.

While I got a lot of comments and squinting at my choice of sauce for the meatball, I never felt the need to defend the buerre blanc. Lemon-y and wine-y, it's tart zing was a nice counterpoint to the the richness of the meatball. In short, it was just GOOD, that's all.

I didn't explain that when I plunked some generous meatballs, some al dente veggies, and a heaping spoonful of buerre blanc down in front of mi esposo at dinner tonight. And he didn't ask.

After eating he leaned back and said:

"I'm officially full. And that was officially good."

I felt vindicated. The humble meatball, when aimed properly, never misses the mark!