Meet My Sister...

For the past few years, my sister JoAnne has had Easter dinner. The first year she hosted, we all arrived, absolutely starving, and waited for our dinner to be ready. There was salad, spaghetti, ravioli, homemade sauce, meatballs, sausage...everything you could want in an Italian feast.

JoAnne had a new stove with a glass cooktop. She put the water on to boil and we waited. And waited. And waited some more. After an hour or so, we determined the water would never boil, so we threw the pasta in anyway, it eventually cooked and we ate dinner. About 2 hours late. We had some cranky little kids and some crankier adults eating dinner that night!

Of course, in typical sibling fashion, my brother and I have never let her forget it. For Christmas that year, I bought her an Italian cookbook with specific directions on how to boil water. We've been harassing her ever since, yet she still volunteers to cook dinner for us every Easter. I got a call a week before Easter letting me know that the water was on to boil and to make sure I was at her house for dinner at 5 on Easter Sunday. This year she did it...the water was boiling and the ravioli were cooked by 5! Good job, Jo!

Of course, it turns out that the reason the water wouldn't boil was because the pot needed to be flat on the bottom and hers wasn't. Who knew? She now has a new flat pot and can boil water with the best of them.

And dinner was delicious...