Got lots of stuff done this weekend: fixed the garage door, bought a ladder, used the ladder to take down the broken vent, cleaned the gardening wreckage we'd piled beside the garage, built the climbing wall for the boys' playhouse, and generally put things where they needed to be.

I also made a huge pot of tomato sauce today. I shopped for the meat yesterday. While at BJ's I eyeballed a big veal steak, bone-in. Looked good, but when I read the label for the expiration date I noticed it said lamb. I didn't do any DNA testing, but if that meat came from a lamb, that creature must have had a severe case of anemia. I walked on and saw it: a large package, its clear plastic bulging with giant hunks of bone and sinew and clumps of fat gently couching small islands of ruby meat.

This one appeared to have its proper label: BEEF BONES. The price: a bargain at $3.59 for what seemed like a metric ton.

I scooped it up. This morning I threw them in the oven on a pan, wanting to render some fat and get them started. When the meatballs were ready to in I transferred the bones to the pot and the balls to the well-greased pan. Eventually all would simmer for many hours in that sea of red velvet.

Yep, that was some thick tomato sauce... so rich it steamrolled the flavor of the weakling ravioli I had boiled. That was good stuff. But next time, back to veal.