"Mrs. Hazan embraced simplicity, precision and balance in her cooking."

"She abhorred the overuse of garlic in much of what passed for Italian food in the United States, and would not suffer fools afraid of salt or the effort it took to find quality ingredients."

Her tomato sauce, enriched with only an onion, butter and salt, embodies her approach, but she has legions of devotees to other recipes, among them her classic Bolognese, pork braised in milk and her minestrone.

That sentence happens to name 4 of my favorite recipes in "The Classic Italian Cook Book," my favorite cookbook. Well-used since the 70s, that book lost its cover the 1990s, and in old age, it obligingly splays open to pages festively splattered with the sauces of suppers past.

Goodbye to Marcella Hazan. She was 89.