It all started with Felix.

Six years ago, when Kara and Garnie lived together, they adopted a beautiful flat-faced Persian cat that had been abandoned in a mobile home park in South Georgia.

They named him Felix but called him Monkey Man. He was the coolest cat ever.

On June 26^th, Felix had a heart attack and died. One minute he was walking around and the next he was gone. Garnie texted the family and we headed to her place. When we get news like that, we all just show up.

We gathered and said goodbye to Felix, then went our separate ways. Kara’s mother-in-law Kristen was in town for the impending birth and she and I set off on a walk through Mado, Serenbe’s newest hamlet-to-be, with Steve and four other people. As we walked through the woods, we got a call from Kara, saying, “I think my water has broken.”

Low and behold, it had. And this is normally where the story would include a mad dash to the hospital, but Kara was having none of it. She was two weeks shy of her due date, in the process of turning Camp Serenbe over to her assistant, and could not be convinced to shut down her laptop. Micah said, “We need to go to the hospital,” to which Kara replied, “No, I’m not ready.”

Typical Kara: She has things to do.

So Kristen and I retired to our respective places to await the call that Kara has gotten everything done and was en route to the hospital. In the meantime, I packed a bag of food: cheese, prosciutto, watermelon, blueberries, chocolate and a couple of sandwiches.

Typical Marie: Wherever we’re going, let’s be well-fed.

We got the call and headed out, desperately trying to keep up with Micah, who was speeding because the contractions had started. They got there, checked in and we were right behind them.

The wait began.

Steve and I were in the room with Kristen, who’s a certified midwife, but we could only talk to Micah per Kara’s instructions. Watching the two of them together — and seeing Micah tend to her — was nothing short of exquisite.

Garnie and Quinn arrived, planning to stay only an hour. Kara was in active labor – Kristen and I knew what she was going through, but unless you’ve done natural childbirth, there’s no way you can describe the pain. Though she’d never been to a birth before, Garnie walked in, assessed the situation, walked over to Kara and essentially became her doula.

Typical Garnie: The CEO of everything. Lead the charge; deal with the situation.

When Kara and Garnie were in high school, they were on the cross country team together. Garnie brought that training into the labor room and it clicked. “See the top of that hill? That’s where we’re going. Just focus on that hill,” she said and totally got in synch with Kara.

After 10 hours of active labor, Amos Nygren Adler, all 6 pounds, 6 ounces of him, arrived at 2:54 a.m. on June 27^th.

In all my years of cooking, it never occurred to me that there was a difference between pomodoro sauce and marinara. Then Linton Hopkins appeared for the Southern Chefs Series with his canned tomatoes and chittara cutter and taught me a thing or two.

Pomodoro is made with fresh tomatoes. Marinara is made from canned. And not just any canned, but D.O.P. certified, or Denominazione d’Origine Protetta, which means they’re strictly regulated according to things like the strain of San Marzano tomato, how they’re grown, where in Italy they’re grown and how they’re harvested (by hand, of course).

Full of knowledge from his trip to Italy last summer, Linton made both a Bolognese and a marinara. He did the Bolognese first because — and he was very adamant about this — a true Bolognese has to cook for three hours.

He was also adamant about the size of the onion, celery and carrot we chopped to sauté in olive oil and butter before adding the ground beef. They had to be tiny so they could “melt into the sauce.”

Fun fact: At Restaurant Eugene, Linton only allows chefs to have two knives at their station: a 10-inch and a paring knife. If they can’t do it with those two, he says they don’t need to be in his kitchen.

I had one Dutch oven in the house, so Linton said, “Go find a romantic pot, Marie.” I was like, what? But I went to a neighbor’s house, asked for a romantic pot and came back with a lovely enamel pot. Crazy to think it makes the sauce taste better, but it just might.

Though we made it on Sunday, we ate the Bolognese on Monday with gnocchi. Linton used Marcella Hazan’s recipe — a truly authentic Bolognese with no flash or pizzazz.

And it makes a damn good sauce.

Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese

• For 6 servings, or 2 ¼ to 2 ½ cups
• 2 tablespoons chopped yellow onion
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons chopped celery
• 2 tablespoons chopped carrot
• ¾ pound ground lean beef, preferably chuck or the meat from the neck
• Salt
• 1 cup dry white wine
• ½ cup milk
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 cups canned Italian tomatoes, roughly chopped, with their juice

1. In an earthenware pot or deep, heavy, enameled cast-iron casserole, add the chopped onion with all the oil and butter and sauté briefly over medium heat until just translucent. Add the celery and carrot and cook gently for 2 minutes.

2. Add the ground beef, crumbling it in the pot with a fork. Add 1 teaspoon salt, stir and cook only until the meat has lost its raw, red color. Add the wine, turn the heat up to medium high and cook, stirring occasionally, until all the wine has evaporated.

3. Turn the heat down to medium, add the milk and nutmeg, and cook until the milk has evaporated. Stir frequently.

4. When the milk has evaporated, add the tomatoes and stir thoroughly. When the tomatoes have started to bubble, turn the heat down until the sauce cooks at the laziest simmer, just an occasional bubble. Cook, uncovered, for a minimum of 3 ½ to 4 hours, stirring occasionally. Taste and correct for salt. If you cannot watch the sauce for such a long stretch, you can turn off the heat and resume cooking it later on. But do finish cooking it in one day.

This sauce can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, or frozen. Reheat until it simmers for about 15 minutes before using.

When Linton Hopkins arrived last month for the Southern Chefs Series, he had 4 things he’d never brought before: a plan to cook Italian food. a chittara pasta cutter; a four-ounce bottle of vinegar that cost $120; and his 17-year-old son, Linton V.

But he had that same all-encompassing passion for food and knowledge, which always strikes me, no matter how many times he visits. Every time that man walks through my door, I learn something.

The words “cooking class” only loosely describe what happens when Linton straps on his apron and starts talking to guests in my kitchen. It’s a food history, cooking technique and philosophy class rolled into one.

At some point — possibly when he was showing everyone the Peugeot peppermill he bought in Paris that lets you change the grind on the pepper — I just sat back and listened. He is such an unbelievable teacher. Here are four things he said that spoke straight to my soul:

1. Cooking well means having a love affair with food. And no one wants a crappy lover. That means using the best ingredients — the best olive oil; the best cut of meat. He didn’t use that $120 bottle of balsamic to dress a salad; he put a drop of it on top of a thin slice of sautéed garlic sitting on top of a thick slice of bacon he’d cured at Restaurant Eugene. And it was heaven.

2. Ten thousand hours. This was Linton’s response any time someone asked him how long it took him to learn how to poach an egg, or crack one with one hand. It takes practice, he told them. Hours and hours of practice. It reminded me so much of that scene in Julie & Julia when Julia Child refuses to be defeated at Le Cordon Bleu because she can’t chop onions correctly. So she gets a huge sack of onions, goes home and practices until she gets it right.

3. Fail forward: If you fail, keep moving forward. Don’t stop and don’t let it get you off track. Keep moving, keep trying, keep thinking your way to success.

4. Get your hands dirty: Linton is a huge kitchen gadget geek, but the most essential tools are his hands. He asked, “How can we learn to cook — how can we learn how the food really feels — unless our hands are in it?”

Come back next week for more about Linton’s homemade pasta and another thing I learned: the difference between marinara and pomodoro.