Italian for dinner tonight

This is Marcella Hazan's recipe for red sauce.  The stuff you put on your spaghetti ...

• 2 pounds fresh, ripe tomatoes, prepared as described below, or 2 cups canned imported Italian tomatoes, cut up, with their juice
• 5 tablespoons butter
• 1 medium onion, peeled and cut in half
• Salt to taste

1. Put either the prepared fresh tomatoes or the canned in a saucepan, add the butter, onion, and salt, and cook uncovered at a very slow, but steady simmer for about 45 minutes, or until it is thickened to your liking and the fat floats free from the tomato.
2. Stir from time to time, mashing up any large pieces of tomato with the back of a wooden spoon.
3. Taste and correct for salt. Discard the onion before tossing with pasta. Serve with freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese for the table.

Manomanoman, that's a lot of butter.  A stick of butter holds 8 tablespoons, just so we're clear.  But I was amazed when I first read it that you discard the onion once the sauce is done.

Genius!

I happen to own all the ingredients mentioned in the recipe (how many times does that happen?), and I think I'm going to give it a spin tonight.  

For those of you who just wander through life in a cloud, Ms. Hazan's contribution to Italian cooking in this country was immense.  Witness The Times gushing:

The impact Mrs. Hazan had on the way America cooks Italian food is impossible to overstate. Even people who have never heard of Marcella Hazan cook and shop differently because of her, and the six cookbooks she wrote, starting in 1973 with “The Classic Italian Cook Book: The Art of Italian Cooking and the Italian Art of Eating.”

Sadly, they did their gushing in her obituary.  She died perhaps a week ago.

Adios Campagnolo.