sauce
As a child in Upper Montclair, NJ., just west of New York City, Arlene Hayden spent spellbound hours scrutinizing F.A.O. Schwartz’s Christmas catalog for toys to add on her wished-for-gift list. Topping her list each year, beginning when she was four, was “The Betty Crocker Bake Set.” Finally, on one Christmas morning, wrapped under her family’s tree, was a set with her name on it. She was eight.
That day she tested out her new bake set, turning out little cakes and muffins for her family. When they had their fill, she knocked on neighbors’ doors for them to purchase her baked goods. Before long she was baking large gingerbread “boys” and “girls” and selling them to the kids in her neighborhood.
You might say Arlene has been making “goodies” ever since. No surprise, then, that after a successful career as an art director in New York City for major women’s magazines and department stores, and settling in Doylestown, she returned to what she loves most. Making people happy with the foods she makes in her kitchen.
“Goodies” is the name of the homemade canned foods and fresh baked goods she makes and sells at the Doylestown Farmers’ Market on Hamilton Street, between State and Oakland streets every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., from now till the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Though not a professionally trained chef, Arlene learned from some of the best. For starters, while other kids her age were glued to the TV screen watching “Leave It to Beaver,” Arlene was watching Julia Childs’s “The French Chef” with her mother. And in place of pouring over “Archie” and “Batman” comic books, Arlene was soaking up recipes from her mother’s “Gourmet” magazines. Later, as an art director, she had the opportunity to learn from the celebrated chefs that appeared in the magazines she worked for. And through the years—always—her kitchen was her “laboratory,” as she affectionately calls it, and her family and friends her tasters (especially her late husband Howard).
2020 marks Arlene’s 21st year selling at the Doylestown Farmers Market (DFM). I first became acquainted with this quirky, funny and talented woman more years than I can remember, stopping by her tent at the market to chat and buy one (okay, more than one) of her freshly baked breads, a jam or two, a bag of her always-sold-out biscotti or other cookies, and, always one of her canned veggies, like Dilly Beans or Roasted Beets. But it wasn’t until I couldn’t fly into Pittsburgh to visit my brother and his wife one Christmas that I discovered Arlene’s Chunky Marinara Sauce (CMS).
To explain, whenever I visited my brother and sister-in-law, I couldn’t leave without making a big batch of my moms’s Italian tomato sauce for them to freeze. The year I knew I couldn’t visit them for Christmas I sent my brother jars of “goodies” homemade Chunky Marinara Sauce. He loved her sauce so much, it became our Christmas tradition.
During the years before selling her Chucky Marinara Sauce at DFM, Arlene perfected its recipe. To her plum tomato sauce, she added a smattering of finely chopped peppers, celery, carrots, onions, herbs and “always garlic.” Careful not to add too many veggies, she says. “After all, the tomatoes are the stars of the sauce.” And never any sugar, she says. “The carrots add all the sweetness you need and no salt—ever.”
For her Chunky Tomato Sauce Arlene uses tomatoes plucked from her own garden, and because of the volume she needs to meet the demands for her CMS from her customers, she also uses tomatoes from local farmers—“mostly from fellow market vendors,” she says. She prefers a mix of plum tomatoes, such as San Marzano, Martino’s Roma and Amish Paste. “But different seed catalogs have different names for them,” she says. She adds a few new varieties each year to her seed stash saved from the previous harvest. Of course, it’s always a battle over how well her crop will do, she says, given the weather and the critters who think her tomatoes and the other vegetables she grows are their dinner. For her sauce’s herbs, Arlene is very clear: She only uses Genovese basil and Italian oregano. “And, sometimes, some red pepper flakes,” she says, explaining, “not to add any heat but to counter if there’s too much sweetness from the carrots.”
When my brother passed away in the summer of 2018, I stopped sending Arlene’s Chunky Marinara Sauce to Pittsburgh for Christmas. Instead I sent my sister-in-law the handmade chocolate truffles I knew she favored. Knowing Arlene’s last day to sell at DFM was before Thanksgiving, my sister-in-law called me last year in late October and requested that instead of sending her chocolates for Christmas to resume sending jars of Arlene’s Chunky Marinara Sauce. Adding, to “please send enough jars to last me through winter and spring.” “Opening up a jar of Arlene’s sauce,” my sister-in-law said, “is like having the taste of summer over my pasta.”
My sister-in-law may be Arlene’s farthest fan but she’s not alone. Many of Arlene’s customers stock up on jars of her Chucky Marinara Sauce to savor all winter long.
Look for Arlene at her “goodies” stand at the Doylestown Farmers Market on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.; www.bucksfoodshed.org/dfm.
Diana Cercone is an area freelance writer who specializes in food, art and travel.