Wheather or not...

Friday the fifth of February 2010 was the first time in years that our school district had an early dismissal.

It was for the snowstorm. The storm that had not dropped one tiny flake of snow on us. It was in anticipation of the storm. We all drove home laughing at the dry roads and planning our now one hour longer weekends. Now, State College is the town where AccuWeather was born and where the company administrates ALL the weather predicting for ALL of the world. The building is large and has lots of beautiful windows and satellite dishes that point into the heavens so we can know all we need to know about what to expect. It helps us plan our wardrobes and gets us geared up for either boots or bikinis (not for me mind you but for all the university girls who rush out to the dorm lawns in April to start on their tans). AccuWeather predicted State College and the surrounding area would be on the northernmost edge of this storm, getting only maybe 8 inches total. We got 20 inches of snow in my back yard! 20 inches is a foot more snow than the experts thought we would receive. Big difference, dont you think??

Recently my mother and father were visiting me and we were planning meals. That is my mother's greatest joy and most time consuming activity. Planning meals. She plans lunch while eating breakfast and wonders about dinner soon after that. She is a very very good cook. Her lasagna is legendary and her sauce the best. It is very hard to duplicate and it is something I always attributed to her having better water at her disposal than the rest of us have. I think I make a pretty good rendition of that sauce. I like to cook it and like to serve and eat it. It is this close to mom's sauce.

So, what does this sauce talk have to do with snowstorms? It is this--details. Details count. We were beginning a big pot of sauce while my parents were here. I was chopping onions and gathering fresh herbs from my garden to add to the pot. We were chatting and cooking. I went for one more ingredient---garlic. At this point my mother very casually says, "I never use garlic in my sauce". None, ever, no garlic??? I remember helping to make sauce as a kid. I thought it had garlic in it. I really did. Turns out both her father, my grandfather, and my brother both hate garlic. She told me my grandfather was allergic to it. I remember he didn't like it but for some reason still thought the sauce had garlic.

Things that make you go hummmmmm! We used to joke years ago that Grandma would "forget" about one little ingredient so no one could ever make the food taste as good. Like the episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where Debra realizes that Marie changed just one ingredient and that changed everything.

Details. Details count. The absence of garlic and the addition of snow flakes make a difference.