On a long ago Monday morning I arrived at work to find my boss dabbing at tears and sniffling. Being the wretchedly self-centered person that I am, my mind turned to things that could make me share her sadness - was our department being eliminated? Was the bonus pool smaller than expected? No. She'd argued with her fiancé. Phew! Comforted that I shared not her problem, I inquired as to the nature of the quarrel.

"He laughed at me because I think we shouldn't add stuff to the spaghetti sauce. I mean, if the company wanted it there they'd have put it there in the first place, right?!" she wailed.

Turns out the happy couple had been making baked ziti for dinner on Friday evening. My boss' intended added some herb or spice to the jarred sauce and she objected on the aforementioned grounds. Now, this was my boss. On the one hand, if she wanted to assert commercial spaghetti sauce purity, I was going to line up right behind her (saving my battles for issues affecting the bonus pool, say). On the other hand, I was utterly stupefied by the intensity of her opinion on the matter.

I asked if she'd never added salt, pepper or butter to frozen corn (leaving aside that it's possible to buy preseasoned frozen corn), or red pepper flakes to pizzeria pizza. In fact, I pointed out, with this line of reasoning one could argue that if the ziti company had wated its product enjoyed with sauce of any kind it would have put it there (leaving aside also that it's possible to buy canned and frozen presauced pasta).

I don't remember if I convinced her that a little oregano in the Prego was no reason to argue. I do remember thinking that if no one ever messed with commercial products to make them closer to personal tasts then few people were likely to learn to cook at all these days, what with home ec being eliminated from school curricula and the knowledge not really being handed down generationally as it was in the past.

Futzing around with the offerings of Kraft, Lipton, et. al., may well be the path to relying on those companies less. It's not that far a leap from adding garlic to a rice-and-butter mix to realizing that one can add both garlic and butter to plain rice, resulting in a healthier, tastier and cheaper meal. Lately I'm excited about learning to make my own cheese and hamburger buns. But I couldn't even consider these projects if I hadn't myself back in the day added a bit of something to a jarred or canned whatsit and worked forward from there.

I've made it plain here that I'm not among Sandra Lee's greatest fans. Truthfully, though, my feelings are complicated. "Semi-homemade" may not be a long-term goal I'd advocate, but I'd say that these days it's a totally honorable path to journey on the way to "I made it myself."