Morning, Gentle Readers! Deirdre here, since Miles said I could have the lead-off this morning if I filled in that chapter in the book we are supposed to release tomorrow for the big kick-off to the Fall Season and another triumph of Chairman Willies Socotra House publishing empire. That makes this installment the next to the one before- the “penultimate” pasta pitch!

I am skeptical as well about that.

We didn’t realize how this project was going to come to pass. Our earlier books had been focused on the people the Chairman interacted with across a bifurcated career in the Navy, Capitol Hill and the depths of the Intelligence Community. The 250th threw that approach into a cocked hat, which is one of the symbols that have been flying around with feathers and pipes and drums all summer.

You could attempt to pile them all atop one another- in addition to the usual summer fandangoes of beaches and baseball, there was the FIFA World Cup and the high-pitched roar of the Grand Prix and the slightly lower but more purposeful one about the election they tell us is only 63 days away.

The part about the book- “Cooking With Oil”- is a description of how our team manages to produce a morning and afternoon product that runs on the Socotra website and is used for product placement elsewhere. Like today, when Congress comes back from a vacation we are not sure they earned and the Arlington County kids do their fifteen-minute return to schools.

So, here goes: Store-bought tomato sauce refers to commercially prepared, shelf-stable or refrigerated sauces derived primarily from tomatoes, often blended with herbs, spices, oil, acid (e.g., vinegar or citric acid), and preservatives.

I tried to point out to Miles that pasta sauce is something different since it typically contains added cheese, meat, or starches as a foundational base used in soups, stews, shakshuka, grain bowls, and slow-cooked legumes. I have chapters on air frying and slow cooking, so it seems to me that a chapter or two may require a little more work. But we will see what we can get accomplished today. In the meantime, pull up a stool. I have some vegetables that need some chopping!

Oh, and that nice comparison of the 14 sauces I include in the once-a-month run to Costco?

‘Michaels of Brooklyn’ is my favorite of the ones I could assemble for the tomato chapter, but I have found the the simple act of adding a few fried veggies, some Italian seasonings, paprika and hot sauce can make even the low-budget sauces work just fine. Or just mix ’em together!

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