Party Appetizer Meatballs — The Birthday Kind, The Real Recipe Kind

February. Paul's birthday month — he'll be sixty-three on July 5, but February is my birthday and this year I turned fifty-seven on February 2 and the birthday was nothing — a card from Anna, a text from Peter, a call from Mamma — because birthdays are nothing when the person you love is running out of them. Paul typed on my birthday: "HAPPY BIRTHDAY LINDA. 57 YEARS OF BEING THE BEST PERSON I KNOW." The machine said it. I stood in the kitchen and the machine's flat voice spoke my husband's love and I pressed my hands against the counter and I breathed and the breathing was all I could manage. 57 years. Not all good. Not all easy. 57 years of Duluth and the lake and the cold and the hot and the children and the parents and the brother who died and the father who drank and the mother who baked and the husband who taught and the dog who follows and the soup that holds. 57 years. In a kitchen. With a man who types love on a screen because his mouth can't say it. Paul's breathing is at fifty percent. Fifty. Half. Half of what a healthy person breathes. The ventilation is running twenty-three hours a day now. One hour off. The morning hour. The hour I remove the mask and see his face and kiss his forehead and wash him and dress him (in pajamas now, always pajamas, because the effort of real clothes is too much) and the hour passes and the mask goes back on and the face disappears and the eyes remain. One hour. One hour of face. Sophie is graduating in May. Three months. Paul typed last week: "I'LL BE THERE." The same words he typed in August. Three months. The timeline says — I won't do the timeline. I won't calculate. I will believe Paul. He says he'll be there. He'll be there. I made a birthday dinner for myself: meatballs. What else. The real recipe. The ginger. Perfect. For Paul: the smell. For me: the taste. For both of us: the tradition of the meatball on the birthday, unbroken since 1963 when Mamma made them for my first birthday, probably, and every birthday since. Paul smelled them and typed: "BIRTHDAY MEATBALLS." I said, "Birthday meatballs." He typed: "THE BEST KIND." The best kind. Yes. The birthday kind. The real recipe kind. The fifty-seven-year kind. The love kind. February. My birthday. The breathing at fifty percent. Three months until May. He'll be there. He said so. I believe him.

I have made these meatballs every year since I can remember, and my mother made them before that, and her mother probably made something like them too — the ginger is the thing, the detail that makes them ours and not just any meatball. This year I made them for myself, for my fifty-seventh birthday, in a quiet kitchen with Paul’s ventilator running in the next room, and when I carried the pan past the doorway he smelled them before I said a word. That is the recipe doing what a recipe is supposed to do. If you have a birthday coming, or someone you love who needs to smell something good, this is the one.

Party Appetizer Meatballs

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 50 min | Servings: 8 (about 32 meatballs)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs ground beef (85% lean)
• 1/2 lb ground pork
• 1/2 cup plain breadcrumbs
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 small yellow onion, grated
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp freshly grated ginger
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp ground allspice
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tbsp neutral oil, for browning
• For the sauce:
• 1 cup beef broth
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Mix the meatballs. In a large bowl, combine the breadcrumbs and milk and let soak for 2 minutes. Add the egg, grated onion, garlic, ginger, salt, pepper, allspice, and nutmeg. Mix gently with a fork. Add the ground beef and pork and mix with your hands just until combined — do not overwork.
2. Shape. Roll the mixture into balls about 1 inch in diameter (roughly the size of a large marble). You should get about 32 meatballs. Place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet as you go.
3. Brown. Heat the oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches, brown the meatballs on all sides, about 4–5 minutes per batch. Transfer browned meatballs to a plate; they do not need to be cooked through yet.
4. Make the sauce. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of fat from the skillet. Whisk the flour into the remaining fat over medium heat and cook for 1 minute. Slowly whisk in the beef broth and Worcestershire sauce, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Simmer until slightly thickened, about 3 minutes.
5. Finish. Return all meatballs to the skillet. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer gently for 15 minutes until cooked through. Remove from heat, stir in the sour cream, and season with salt and pepper. Serve warm directly from the skillet with toothpicks, or over egg noodles for a dinner.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 310 | Protein: 24g | Fat: 19g | Carbs: 9g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 480mg