Betty Lives!

Meatballs:

Ladies Who Lunch

Ann Reed and Marilyn Pfaltz

1972

Rolls:

Betty Crocker’s All-Time Favorites

1972

I chose this week’s menu quickly and carelessly because the truth is I have been frustrated with my Betty project. I’m not entirely sure that I have more than a handful of readers, among them my husband and sister. I receive daily reports from Google that analyze the traffic on Betty Lives, and it can be wrenchingly depressing. I see how many people view my site and from the average time I can tell if they actually read anything or if they arrived by error, didn’t find what they need, and moved on quickly. I have recently stopped reading the reports entirely. Why the fuck am I doing this? But then grace arrived in the form of a comment from a long-lost college friend. I have no idea how he found me but the fact that he did, and then commented, made me feel re-energized and excited to write. Thank you Andy Eig, this post is for you. You were my very first gourmet partner and the meals (and wines) we had together laid the foundation for my crazy, twisted, culinary life.

Ham meatballs on pineapple rounds. I can’t explain this choice at all except to say maybe it was a form of attempted culinary suicide. I was frustrated and sad so I picked the weirdest recipe I could find to nudge me over the ledge. The meatballs are simple: equal amounts of ground, smoked ham and ground pork mixed with milk and an egg. What’s over the top is the sauce: 1 cup of brown sugar mixed with 1/2 cup white vinegar, 1/2 cup water, and 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard. This gets poured over the balls and the lot is baked for an hour. I mixed the sauce but realized that I couldn’t possibly use the entire amount because the hamballs would give off liquid during cooking and, with all the sauce, become totally submerged, so I used about half. They browned nicely in the 350 degree oven and the liquid was halfway up the hamballs. The pineapple slices are painted with a mixture of melted butter and (more) brown sugar and then quickly tucked under the broiler. They weren’t fabulous, for me the taste of the ham overwhelmed it all, and they were definitely too dry. Also, I think Mimi Sheraton once wrote that pineapple is one of those foods that overwhelms anything with which it is served and should therefore only be served by itself. I’m with her on this.

The rolls however were lovely, brown and crisp on the outside with a nice crumb. What defines the dough, which is yeast-risen, is the addition of both buttermilk and sour cream. I was hoping for more of a tang but was disappointed. I chose to make them in “cobblestone” form - placed side by side in a round cake pan and pulled apart after cooking. It is so wonderful to have the smell of fresh bread in the house and I’m glad that the recipe actually makes a triple batch of dough that can be frozen. Next time I’ll try “cloverleaf” rolls - baked in muffin tins and snipped on top with scissors.