A Recipe Worth Not Sharing

For Mothers' Day for Mrs. At Home, we're making an extra-special treat. Lasagna. But this is no ordinary lasagna.

When I was younger, my oldest sister (yeah - one of the three, the cool one - the others are cool, too, but for this story, she's the cool one) used to make this uber yummy and filling lasagna. And at some point, when she deemed me worthy, she taught me everything I know (but certainly not everything she knows) about making this very special occasion lasagna.

Most people I talk to, when I mention that I'm making lasagna, and that it takes awhile, they say something like, "yeah - mine too. It takes like two hours to put together". No - this lasagna takes all day. You have to plan long in advance to make it. It can't be done slowly. It's very expensive to make. Today, I didn't have to buy any spices, and the groceries were about half a weekly grocery bill - for one meal. And it takes care. You have to plan things - and it never works out, even with the most careful of planning. The number of layers you want rarely come out, or you have something left over.

Since we've downsized, I've found that we downsized too much for this lasagna. I prepared everything knowing I would run out of something, but I didn't run out of anything, except pans to put it in. I had some cheese left over, some sauce (which is a good thing), and lots of pasta. Like I said, it never works out, but I think this is the first time I ran out of pans and not food.

I can't begin to tell you what an experience this lasagna is. It's life-changing. Nobody else's lasagna is even close - I had the lasagna at Harry Carey's, and it was not even in the same league as mine. And as I said, big sis taught me all I know, but not all she knows - so mine is only a shadow of hers.

I know the recipe well. As with most of my recipes, it's not recorded on the computer or in a big box of recipes. You can't find it in the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook that absolutely everybody owns. You won't find it on some ancient piece of parchment in a stash of family heirlooms. Learning this recipe is like learning tabla - it can't be learned be reading or seeing. It must be experienced to be learned.

But you can't have the recipe. I won't teach it to you. There is power in this recipe. And when the time is right, I will pass the recipe on to my daughters for the express purpose of finding a husband. Yes - this is mate-securing lasagna. This is love-at-first-sight lasagna. This is Fitzwilliam Darcy fetching lasagna. While my sister was less selfish and taught it to me for my own enjoyment, and probably to share in entertaining guests (which I have done with this recipe many times), I'm withholding it from anybody else until I give it as a dowry (because there won't be much else for a dowry).