I know my way around a kitchen. My
old man owned a string of restaurants while I was growing up.
My mornings consisted of rising
before the sun and doing prep work in the kitchen before taking off for school.
After school, I’d work a couple hours doing whatever needed doing, then come
back again after close to clean the floors.
Sounds like a Cinderella-esque
existence, but it wasn’t. My dad paid me waaaay more than I was worth and for
the most part, the quality of my work was lousy. On top of that, I almost
always dragged a few friends along to do the cleaning at night; a teenager will
work hard for unfettered access to a commercial deep fryer and freezer full of
bad-for-you food to toss into it.
My point is, cooking has been a
part of my life since I can remember. Nobody’s going to mistake me for a Cordon
Bleu chef, but I can put together a meal without much trouble, regardless of
the ingredients available.
This has come in handy over the
years. My last two wives (both of whom had many good qualities) couldn’t boil
water without setting the house afire. So most cooking tasks were relegated to
me. I didn’t mind. I like to cook.
However, my new wife, Ms. Taylor
(formerly Lori Frankforter), is something of a prodigy when it comes to
preparing food. She doesn’t make simple fare, like me, but fancy-schmancy
“artistic” grub best suited to a garden party at The White House.
Everything she cooks looks like
it was painted by Monet. Her food should be framed and hung in the Guggenheim.
Seriously. It’s too pretty to eat.
Even her midnight snack fare is
breathtaking. She can take a bag of taco chips and month-old salsa and turn it
into a repast fit for Henry the Eighth. (I am I am. Sorry. Try getting that
song out of your head now.)
At any rate, her talent has
prompted me to work a little harder, to be a bit more creative with my own
cooking. That includes simple stuff like chili.
Now that the temperature has
dropped into the double digits after a summer of Sahara-like abuse, chili, stew
and other stovetop-type chow again seems like a good idea.
So last Saturday I made a trip to
the market and purchased some nice, fresh vegetables: peppers, jalapenos,
onions, tomatoes, some steak. Everything I need to put together my signature
chili.
I say “signature chili,” but I
don’t really believe in recipes. I subscribe to the “a little o’ this, a little
o’ that” school of cooking. Nine times out of ten this works out just fine.
But after working all day cutting
veggies, dicing meat, adding seasonings and simmering ceaselessly, what I wound
up with in that chili pot … well, it wasn’t good.
Oh, it might be good for getting
the rust off an old Buick or melting holes in steel plates, but for eating? Not
so much.
I got a little over enthusiastic
with the peppers, particularly the habaneros. As you may already know, habanero
is Spanish for “Go ahead Gringo, if you dare!”
The best thing you could say
about my chili is it could, in a pinch, double as rocket fuel. I managed to
choke back a couple bites anyway, because I’m a man and I have to pretend spicy
food doesn’t scare me. Ms. T (fLF) was under no such constraints and wouldn’t
even go into the kitchen while the chili was sitting out uncovered. She was
afraid it might rise from the pot and attack her.
Since I was raised in a large,
Catholic family, I’m psychologically incapable of wasting food, even bad food, so
I divided the chili into several Tupperware bowls and buried them in the
freezer out in the garage, behind some earlier failed experiments. The chili
will sit there for a year or two, after which time I’ll be able to toss it out
guilt-free. Not logical, but it’s a system that works for me.
Problem is, I’m still in the mood
for chili. Guess I’ll do a little shopping this afternoon. But this time I’ll
present all those ingredients to Ms. T (fLF). She’ll transform them into chili
that’s not only delicious, but pretty to look at.
(616) 730-1414
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