My Italian Heritage - and an addition to the spaghetti sauce recipe

I received the nicest email from a fellow blogger about my "jazzed-up" emergency spaghetti sauce from a jar! Thought I'd share her suggestions here:

"Other additions to throw into a jar of sauce at the last minute:
Frozen spinach, frozen meatballs (may need to defrost first) roasted red peppers, cream, wine, smoked sausage, kielbasa, pine nuts, onion slices mixed in olive oil or saute until carmelized."

Thanks Lauren!

I promise to post my mom's sauce recipe soon, too. She was Italian and a fabulous chef!

Speaking of my Italian heritage, I thought I'd post a photo of my great-grandparents. They are my mother's mother's parents and came over from Italy around the early 1900's.

Leaning against the chair is what looks like a brace of some sort. Perhaps with wheels? It's not part of the chair and we can't even begin to guess what it is. Does anybody know? On the back of the photo, it has my great-grandparent's names and "deceased child" and "Uncle Mel" -- Uncle Mel later became a Catholic priest. I don't know which boy is which.and was told that the child who passed away may have died from diptheria...
 

My great-grandparents, Domenico Mastroianni and Mariantonia Perretta Mastroianni, and their first two children. Guessing this is from the late 1800's or early 1900's

The Mastroianni's with more of their children.
My grandmother, Angelina, (born in 1912) is the little girl standing in the front.

 

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