Francis Coppola Presents Mammarella Pomodoro-Basilico Pasta Sauce

I may have taken leave of my senses. I think I actually just paid $7 for a jar of pasta sauce. And I liked it.

Here’s the story. For some reason, I have developed some kind of hypersensitivity to garlic. Still tastes good, and yet it causes me to emanate a horrible stench that causes my wife to don a hazmat suit. I seem to be immune to this, and I’m hoping that other folks have forgiven my occasional Italian lunch over the past few months.

Tonight, Lori and I wanted to cook up some chicken sausage with pasta, but I had run out of the tomato basil mariana I usually get from Trader Joe’s. Ran to Genuardi’s around the corner to find a similar low-sodium sauce, and stumbled upon the Mammarella line from director (and super-foodie) Francis Ford Coppola.

While I thought the packaging was a bit labored, a note from the director caught my eye:

The key to this sauce is a lot of chopped onion, but no garlic. Despite the contrary impression, Italians do not use garlic with everything. The art is in understanding when and with what to use it.

At the time, had there been a price tag on the shelf, I probably would have put the jar right back down. And I am too polite a guy to hold up a checkout line at dinnertime, even when fellow patrons saw me turn white at the sign of a $7.59 line item.

Got home, whipped it up, and holy cow — this is really awesome stuff. It tastes like I just picked the tomatoes from the garden out back. And the chopped onion is not overpowering, either. The whole blend is just excellent, especially when paired up with the high protein pasta we like.

I may just have to resign myself to indulging in this stuff regularly. At least I can order the sauce from Amazon if they stop carrying it at Genuardi’s!