Ridiculously Easy Pasta Sauce

For an ever-growing number of Californians a weekly trip to their local farmer’s market has become a way of life. My day is Tuesday. I go early, sometimes arriving before all of the produce has been unloaded. Even an hour later and there will be lines to contend with, but most importantly, the eggs from my favorite pasture-raised chicken farmer will be gone.

Carly Hargrove, the heroine in CARLY’S GIFT, is a farmer’s market kind of woman. She’s someone who can prepare a complex meal and get everything to the table while it’s still hot–an art that has always personally eluded me. Friends and neighbors look at her in awe, never guessing that behind her carefully structured facade, her life is coming apart, and that when it does, the consequences will be devastating.

Following is a recipe Carly could prepare sleepwalking through the kitchen. I work a little harder to get it right, but not much. It’s one of those “a little bit of this and a whole lot of that” kind of recipes, but I promise you that, no matter how you adjust the ingredients, it will turn out as if it was exactly what you had planned all along.