Emily’s Red Wine and Sweet Sausage Pasta

This pasta recipe is one of my comfort stock recipes. I like to call Emily’s Red Wine and Sweet Sausage Pasta. Of course, with all my variations e today it is more of a Rinku’s Red Wine and Sweet Sausage Pasta.  I still like to call it Emily’s as it brings me fond memories of someone who happily touched my life.  I sometimes make the same thing with just chicken; it is simpler offering the same deep flavors.

The story behind the recipe

To tell you about Emily, I have to tell you about my uncle. He was my third uncle, or my grandmother’s third son, my father being her fourth. I am often likened to him by family and they call me a prodigal like him. I shall tell you my story some other day, today let us stick to my uncle. He was the first of our family to venture overseas. My uncle went to England for a medical degree. He came back to India with both the degree and an English wife. Being my grandmother’s favorite son, this caused a lot of shock.

Just as she was beginning to make her peace with the foreign daughter-in-law they decided to leave for the new world – America

This sort of put me out of touch with them, until I later moved to come and study here. I got quite attached to them and did marvel at their courage in forging their own identity. They lived happily together for 33 year, with a love all the more stronger for surving the odds. However, after this my aunt died unexpectedly from cancer. This was painful and heartbreaking for my uncle and not really something that he could recover from.

Left with a broken heart, he retreated to his own vacuum and eventually died himself three years laters.

I did visit them and later just my uncle frequently. His large and peaceful home in small town Ohio, offered me a taste of home and solace. In these last rather reclusive years, he managed to befriend Emily. Her quite gentle friendship helped him with his sadness. I do not know where she is today, but somewhere I often say a silent prayer for her. There remains gratitude in my hear for her, for keeping my uncle company.
One of my visits, Emily had invited me for dinner and was making pasta. My kitchen and pantry then was rather sparse and uninitiated. She amazed and intrigued me with her use of ingredients like foreign pasta, olive oil and red wine in cooking. Ingredients that are now pantry staples. Another hearty red wine infused dish is this pork stew, that I love over polenta.

This pasta dish is now one of my late summer fixes. Perfect for times when tomatoes are still in their bounty and the herbs are plentiful. As for the red wine, that too is free flowing in all seasons.
Depending on the pantry, I have added bell peppers to this sauce as well. I used to add tomato paste to it at one point of time, I have now given that up in favor of cooking it a little longer.