Because I Can, Damn it!

How a dust-up with a friend kept me from making a recipe I'd wanted to make for years—homemade ketchup.

THE JOURNEY that culminated in my appreciation of the wonder that is homemade ketchup was long, circuitous, and, as sometimes happens, littered with the body of a friend.

One autumn night in 2011, our friend Kevin slunk back in through our kitchen door, a waft of cigarette smoke trailing behind him, as he hoped to avoid his partner, Manny, who was helping The One clear the dishes from the dining table so we could play cards.

Kevin leaned against the counter while I washed dishes. “The lasagna was great,” he said.

“Thanks.”

It wasn’t, actually. It was an anemic imposter, devoid of the beef, veal, pork, and cheese that define the true Italian diva.  Instead, it contained zucchini, peppers, and broccoli rabe layered between spinach noodles. Kevin was in his green-food phase.

☞ MAKE THE RECIPE: HOMEMADE KETCHUP

Kevin was the worst kind of vegetarian. He was the sort of self-righteous, self-appointed Mayor of Meatlessopolis who never cared how he inconvenienced the unconverted. Whenever he and Manny came to dinner, I had to haul out a special skillet I bought just for him, one that had never experienced the sizzling, seductive sear of meat on its surface because he insisted he wouldn’t eat anything cooked in a pan that had touched any animal.

On top of all that, he was lactose-intolerant—say hello to dairy-free “cheese”—and also a bit of a hypochondriac. Half an hour or so after we would pour wine, he’d rub his forehead, grab the bottle, and mutter “sulfites” as he scrutinized the label. Then he’d turn his eyes heavenward and shake his head, looking to all the world like one of those beleaguered saints I used to read about in my catechism workbook when I was a kid.

Saint Kevin, the Martyr of Milk

Every time the two of them came over for dinner and cards, which was often, I not only tied myself into knots trying to come up with something to serve him that The One and I could choke down with wan smiles, I stomped through the supermarket seeking suitable meat alternatives and scoured the local liquor stores in search of a specific wine no one had ever heard of (and which we’d never, ever be caught dead drinking on any other occasion), all in the name of friendship.

“Oh, and the sauce? Fan-tas-tic!” Kevin turned his back to the sink and nonchalantly cleaned his nails with a toothpick. I, on the other hand, was so angry my back teeth began twerking. I redoubled my efforts, scrubbing the nubbins of noodles from The Great Unbesmirched Pan.

“Yeah, I got some beautiful second tomatoes,” I said, trying to keep the conversation going. “So I made a sauce. I’m making homemade ketchup, too. I think it’ll make a nice gift.”

With that, Kevin lowered his head and looked as if he was squinting over a pair of spectacles. Judgment rippled across his face. “Why on earth would you go through all that work for anyone?”

Clearly, the irony of the question was lost on him.

I looked at him as if he had asked me, “Why do you eat an entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk by yourself?” or “Why do you binge-watch ‘Baby Reindeer?’”

“Because…I…can.” It came out quietly, almost whispered, but carried such weight as to shut down the conversation.

Since then, I learned how to wriggle out of my friendship with Kevin, but not how to make homemade ketchup. It was distaste by association.

A few years ago, though, The One and I pulled into the old-fashioned gas station just off the center of town in Roxbury, Connecticut, to buy organic vegetables from our local mechanic, Mark. (We called him the Organic Mechanic.) On the counter were gorgeous globes of love practically rolling off the table and into our basket. But it was the boxes stacked beneath that caught my eye, “Sauce Tomatoes” scrawled across their sides. Always a sucker for the underdog—and alarmingly low on homemade tomato puree—I asked the price.

“A dollar fifty per pound,” said Lucia, the salesperson. A buck fifty? That’s incredible! I thought. I bought 20 pounds, then a few days later I went back for 20 more. And after making and freezing 12 quarts of puree, I still had ten pounds left.

Then I heard it in my head. “I’m making homemade ketchup, too. I think it’ll make nice gifts.”

Why on earth did I let his offhanded comment stop me from doing something I’ve wanted to do for more than a decade? I asked myself.

And with that, I began slicing into a beefsteak, its juices squirting across the counter, and simmering, and food-milling, all the while holding a raging one-sided conversation with Kevin.

You know, Kevin, if you plucked your head out of your sanctimonious ass, you’d see that making things from scratch is one of the best ways to live.

I grabbed a handful of overly soft Romas and squeezed hard, bleeding them into a bowl. You may be a strict vegetarian, but you’re a food Nazi. Do you hear me? A FOOD NAZI! I slammed the pot full of chopped tomatoes on the stove and brought the whole thing to a boil.

And ever since you started making millions of dollars, you’ve become a motherfucker…

And there it was. The cancerous root of it all. Standing over a pot of burbling tomatoes, I had a breakthrough that would have cost me $450 had I been sitting in my shrink’s office.

I understood that I have always felt less than Kevin. I’ve never dressed as if I was a member of the Connecticut Lockjaw Society. I don’t have famous actors as friends. I don’t throw fundraisers at my home to support state politicians.

Rather, I dress so messily that I startle our UPS driver. I walked away from Meryl Streep just as she was about to talk to me at an event because I was utterly tongue-tied. And I couldn’t name a local politician if Graycie and Georgie’s lives depended on it. I had let his elitism—his militant vegetarianism, his social exclusivity, his higher tax bracket—cow me.

After the homemade ketchup was cooled, bottled, and tucked away, I considered giving Kevin a jar. There would be a certain symmetry to that. But I knew that such a simple gesture would cost me a lot. A hell of a lot more than $1.50 a pound.

Chow,

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