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 helpin…