Takeout

I am a loyal customer. I'm not usually the lighthouse customer, but show me a product I can love and I will use it exclusively from then on. I have always used Hellman's mayonaise, even when I moved to California and discovered that the same brand here is called Best Foods. My favorite English muffins have always been Thomas', until recently when they seem to have changed the recipe (if any of you know a better English muffin, by the way, I'm looking for a new muffin to love).

I even used the same moisturizer from roughly 1980 to 2009 and I'd still be using the stuff if the company hadn't decided not to make it any more. Reluctantly, I shifted over to another product and, now, I'm loyal again. I usually order it online but, this time when I opened my last jar, they were sold out on the website, so I have to go about an hour's drive north to Santa Rosa to get it. That's not a big hardship and I will gladly make the trip to find the goop I like - just goes to show you how doggedly loyal I can be.

Mostly, I like to cook. I rarely call for a pizza and takeout is usually not a part of my vocabulary. However, when I was in Santa Rosa on a mission to get goop, I had the felicitous thought, "I wonder if Rosso does takeout?"

In addition to pizza, the talented folks at Rosso have a daily special and, on Wednesdays, it's bucatini and meatballs. I had enjoyed the daily special one of the times I was there - these people really, really know how to cook. The answer to my question was "Yes, sure!" The cheerful young waitress settled me in a chair with some recent foodie magazines and took my order for two servings back to the kitchen.

Next time you are in Santa Rosa, maybe even to have lunch at Rosso, I can recommend making your life easier by ordering, along with your pizza, some of their takeout. My Beloved managed to finish his but the portions were so large that I'm having lunch of the rest tomorrow. The meatballs were about the size of a handball and very filling, dense little meteorites of ground meat studded inside with herbs. The tomato sauce was fresh and lively, filled with more herbs and flavor. Even rudely heated in the hurry-up microwave, the dish is delicious. It deserves better treatment than that - next time, I'd heat it slowly in a double boiler - but isn't that what you do with takeout?