you've got two slices of bread, and you wish you had some...

Meatball-ball-ball-balls.

Um, I don't know if anyone else is aware of whether that line comes from some show or whether my parents just made it up. For the longest time I thought that the Landshark was their joke and theirs alone. I had no idea that the Landshark first made its appearance on SNL. I think I was in university before I saw an SNL re-run and was like 'Holy crap! My parents totally stole that joke! And then they tortured me with it! And so did my Uncle!' Wah, wah, wah, my poor tormented childhood. And we just won't mention the Gypsy Bus today. But going back to the sandwich thing, they used to always sing that out when - hm, when would they sing it out? I suppose when we had meatballs, or when we ran out of meatballs, or when we were making sandwiches, and I think I even heard it sometimes when we ran out of bread. I really haven't a clue where it came from or why it was such a popular phrase in our household. It's not like we ate meatball sandwiches on an hourly - or even monthly - basis. So, readers out there (hint, hint, Mum and Dad) please write in and share the story with fixed address. I had no luck googling "meatballs wish two slices of bread", go figure.

But! I digress. As always. The point is that we here at the Sayo Niedzwiecki household no longer wish we had meatballs. We have meatballs. Delicious meatballs. Meatballs so good that if you were a vegetarian, you'd trick yourself and call them tofuballs just so you could chow down on them with us. How, you may ask, did we get these taste sensations? Well, it all began last Saturday when I suggested that Phet make spaghetti and he suggested that we have spaghetti and meatballs. Hm, methought, sounds great. I'm knocked up, I could use the extra iron. Cause I hate the damn iron pills that suck all moisture out of my body. However, we had never made meatballs before, though, so we weren't really sure what went in them. I had a vague recollection - hidden amonst shouts of "...and you wish you had some MEAT BALL BALL BALL BALLS" of my Dad mashing up egg and bread crumbs with the meat, so we got us some eggs and some rice crackers (the big puffed rice ones, not the teeny salty ones) and went home and cooked us some meatballs. They turned out pretty well, but they weren't quite exactly what we had wanted. It turned out that what we actually wanted was Auntie Theresa's meatballs. Phet had had them for the first time the previous summer and was still dreaming about how yummy they were. So we emailed Auntie Theresa and anxiously awaited her reply, rather worried that it would turn out that her recipe was a carefully guarded and never-shared family secret.

Well, yay for us and yay for Auntie Theresa, she wrote back immediately and gave us the full scoop. Thus it came to pass that Sunday found us once again in the kitchen, this time making meatballs with a mixture of beef and pork and then simmering them for several hours in a simple tomato sauce made with not-previously-fried garlic. Ah the joys of having Italian family members who can induct you into the world of stupendously delicious pasta dishes! We have the best family ever! Check out the mouthwatering pictures of our meatball extravaganza and see for yourself if you don't wish you were here singing with us tonight as we eat our meatball sandwiches "YOU'VE GOT TWO PIECES OF BREAD, AND YOU DON'T NEED TO WISH THAT YOU HAD ANY MEAT BALL-BALL-BALL-BALLS!" [Ji Hong-24-April-2006]