4 HA-HA

As a remembrance of my mother who passed away two years ago this week, I made a batch of her famous “club sauce” which she always made in late August or early September as a way to use up the season’s crippled or twisted tomatoes still hanging on the vines – and to be enjoyed on meatloaf through the winter months or given as gifts to those who praised the vinegary-sweet-peppery concoction. Club sauce – my mother couldn’t remember who first handed out the recipe, but the name came from a lifelong "club" of hers that formed amongst six or seven young WWII brides who lived together in housing projects financed by the army while their husbands served time overseas. She used to say that she never laughed so much or so hard as that year before the war ended when this group of women banded together as sisters to teach each other the fundamentals of cooking and house tending – and in some cases, childbirth and child care – skills that would become the work of their lives once the war ended and their husbands returned safely home.

I had been thinking about her for a week as I stalked farmers markets to find the farmer who might have the right kind of leftover tomatoes at the right price – as well as the “18 long skinny hot red peppers” that her scanty, handwritten recipe called for. When all ingredients had been procured and the day came to make the club sauce, I first fixed a large pot of tea – and instantly felt her presence in the kitchen as a sort of guiding force in the making of it . . . some small voice told me I was being too heavy on the sugar, not heavy enough on the onions – something told me – though if it was her, I think she might have warned me about the juiciness of the tomatoes (and what I could have done to thicken it up a bit), and also how to “hotten it up” since the peppers I bought were not as fiery as the ones she used to grow . . .

. . . nevertheless, what yielded were 22 pints of jarred and labeled club sauce, arranged neatly on the kitchen counter just as she would have done after a long day of canning – to admire and enjoy the artistry of practical work for several days before taking it all to the fruit cellar for the winter. On one of these several days I happened to be driving home after a morning of errands when I looked in my rear view mirror and saw a car with a woman inside who looked so much like my mother that a wave of unsolicited comfort rolled through me. Intrigued, I glanced in the rear view mirror every few seconds to catch another glimpse of her familiar face, noticing that her headlights were shining brightly on this horrifically bright sunny day. That seemed odd, and I laughed to think about it – the only person on the road with brightly shining headlights on a sunny day. In a brief second, I took in her short, silvery grey hair that was smoothly trimmed and close to her head – she was always proud of her silver hair and the bit of natural wave it carried. The sun sparkled off her hair as it beat into her car window. On another glance I took in the heavily wrinkled lines that ran along either side of her face from her nose down to her mouth, forming brackets to her upper lip – I believe cosmetologists call those the nasolabial lines – and there’s not much that can be done about them. She always said they made her look “crabby.” Another glance, I took in the reposed half-grin of her mouth that was familiar to me when she was content or in a detached thinking mode. She often looked that way – as though she were enjoying some private joke while the rest of the world hurried on. I took in her stooped, narrow shoulders – so familiar – and her hands which were clasped firmly on the steering wheel; she was a careful driver who would not take her eyes off the road or her hands off the wheel. In this case, she seemed to keep her vigil straight on a daughter who spent too much time looking in a rear view mirror. The only feature unlike my mother was the pair of dark sunglasses – since she never wore them – but even those were oddly shaped just like her reading glasses. Maybe she was trying to disguise herself!

I studied all these particulars as a whole when we both stopped at the red light and I had time to study her image in my rear view mirror for a minute or more. I’ve never been so grateful for a long red light as this time when I could keep my eyes fixed on the rear view mirror where her image was perfectly reflected. I heard my own voice say aloud – to myself, but also to the spirit of what I saw and felt – I said, “So you’re watching over me, aren’t you ma?” Just then, although she too was alone in her car, the woman grew a large grin across her face, stretching and taking in the length of those nasolabial lines on her face. I was grateful for all that extra saggy skin on her face because I saw that it accommodated a larger grin. In the mode of her full smile, she looked even more like my mother . . . even more so . . . and I smiled in my own car too. Feeling braver, I said aloud again, “I knew it, I knew it was you, and I know you’ve been with me all week . . . “

I had more to say, especially about the making of club sauce, but the red light turned green and we were both obliged to move forward. I glanced in my mirror once we had crossed the intersection, and I saw her right-turn signal blink, which meant she’d be leaving me soon. Just as she was about to turn right and I was to continue straight, I said, “So what was that all about if you can’t follow me home to see the 22 jars of club sauce on my kitchen counter?” The woman’s car turned right, and the car that had been behind her suddenly passed and pulled in front of me to stop at the next red light. The car’s license plate read, “4 HA-HA.” And then I understood – it was her answer to me – for the fun of it.

Club Sauce, the recipe
36 lg. tomatoes, peeled and cooked down slightly
6 lg. onions, chopped
18 long skinny hot red peppers, ground
6 cups white vinegar
6 cups sugar
6 Tbsp. salt

Add all ingredients except hot peppers, cook slowly for 2 or 3 hours, will thicken slightly. Add hot peppers and cook a little longer. Process pint jars in hot water bath for 20 minutes.