The large silver pot sits as the on the stove as the bright blue flame glows.

My mother cooks the tomato  sauce, as the process is of utmost importance to start early.
The blood red sauce bubbles. The flame heats the sauce,slowly maturing it,
With the wood spoon in my hand, I stir constantly.

My mother grabs the spoon from and points to the table.
Set atop is a large slab of seasoned raw meat.
I put on the plastic gloves and yank a soft piece of meat from the slab continually.
The meat feels like Playdough as I squish and shape and squeeze the meat pieces into balls.
I set them aside on a tray patiently waiting for them to be added to the sauce.

Plop-plop-plop the meatballs dive into the sauce.
Slowly  stirring, the meatballs cook in the sauce.
After stirring, I dig around in the sauce with the spoon.
Lifting the spoon out of the sauce , a brown meatball cooked just right, sits atop the spoon.
The meatballs are ready and it is time for the final step.

The hard skinny, elongated spaghetti noodles are taken out of the package delicately.
Carefully not to snap the thin rods they are cooked in bubbling boiling water.
Quickly the noodles become soft and we pour them into a strainer in the granite sink.
Hot steam rises up and burns my face as I watch the plop into the strainer.
Plop-plop-plop I hear once again as the noodles fall into the sauce.
This truly has become music to my ears over years.

A bright smile stretches across my face as my mom nods her head.
She scoops up some sauce with the noodles swimming about in it like fish in the ocean.
Dropping it onto my plate the sauce slowly falls with the perfect thickness.
Sitting down I twirl my fork like a carousel  in the family dish.
My heritage flows through me as I take each bite as a voice inside me screams,
“Mama Mia thats a good spaghetti!”