My father-in-law was, what you could charitably call, a character. He was an Italian American of the old school - sprawling families in multi-level homes and pots of gravy (or marinara, to the uninitiated) burbling on the stove until it reached the consistency of hot lava. He loved going out to eat Italian food, usually at someone else's expense, but would invariably peruse the menu with predictable and mounting indignation as he saw dish after dish that he could personally