Hot Today, Chili Tomorrow
My youngest son is a really good cook.
He must get that from his mother because the last thing I want (nor can) do is cook.
When I first separated, a friend let me live in her townhouse. She married her boyfriend, and together they moved into his house. While she tried to sell the townhouse, she said I could live there, till it sold.
“Don’t worry,” she told me, “it’s been on the market for a while, you’ll probably live there for a few months at least.”
You guessed it, she sold it in less than thirty days.
But, I lived there for a few weeks, which gave me time to find a permanent place of my own.
While there, though, it was the first time I shopped for food just for me in a very long time.
That was my first mistake.
Buying food for yourself is different than buying food for a family. I didn’t need a gallon of milk, orange juice, pounds of cold cuts, or anything in bulk. It’s just me. So, by the time I moved out at the end of the month, most of what I bought ended up in the garbage.
A short time later, after I bought my townhouse, I shopped again. I was going to make chicken cutlets, so bought all the ingredients (cutlets, bread crumbs, eggs, vegetable oil).
Cracked the eggs, and put them in a bowl. Poured bread crumbs on a plate. Put frying pan on stove, turned on burner, and filled it with vegetable oil.
Yes, you read that correctly.
I filled it with vegetable oil.
Since I never cooked before, I thought you deep-fried the cutlets, and not just put a thin layer that barely covered the bottom of the pan.
As it heated, I took a cutlet, dipped it in eggs till covered, then slapped it, back and forth, in bread crumb. My hands were caked. Egg-soaked bread crumb gloves covered my fingers.
Then, once heated, I tossed the cutlet into the pool of oil.
I’m lucky I didn’t burn my house to the ground.
Oil jumped at me, at my kitchen walls, in all directions. I bobbed and weaved, tried my best to turn off the burner, but when I did, it didn’t stop boiling.
Grabbed the pan by the handle, slid it over to another burner, then waited until it cooled.
Why I thought I could make chicken cutlets when I never had before is beyond me. Uncooked chicken tossed in freezer, ruined chicken tossed in garbage.
I had first-degree burns and a peanut butter and-jelly sandwich for dinner that night.
It took me a while before I tried this cook-like-an-adult-thing again.
My father made excellent chili. Well, at least that’s what I heard from other people who ate it. I never did.
I was a horrible eater as a child, and my father’s chili was above and beyond my willingness to try anything different.
Years later, I finally thought I’d attempt to make my own chili.
For some reason, I had a crock pot, and a recipe book for that crook pot, in my house.
I really wonder how stuff ends up in my house, but since I had it, thought I’d use it.
Copy of recipe in hand, I headed to the supermarket.
That recipe drove me into aisles I never encountered before. After a long afternoon of searching shelves, I had all that I needed to make chili.
However, there was one thing I was missing, but we’ll get to that later.
In my kitchen, I laid out the ingredients on the countertop, then put them, one by one, into the crock pot per the recipe.
From the top of the list to the bottom, in they went.
First, ground beef. Then seasoning, cans of beans, salsa, everything on the list was piled upon that foundation of ground beef which was first into the pot.
After all the ingredients were emptied into the pot, I read the first line of instructions under the recipe itself.
Really wish they would have put this little bit of information at the top of the page.
It read: Brown ground beef. Drain.
I couldn’t even see the ground beef, it was completely covered by everything else.
Oh, what was the one thing missing I need to make chili?
To know what the hell I was doing in the first place.
Found a bigger pot, flipped all the ingredients into that one, then scooped out the ground beef. It was like a small animal imploded on my counter top.
Browned and drained the meat, put everything back in the crock pot. Let it boil, then simmer, for about two hours.
I would love to say I inherited my father’s cooking skills the way my youngest son inherited his mother’s.
I would like to say that, but it would be a lie. The chili was horrible, and ended up tossed into the garbage.
Seems like a lot of food I buy or make ended up in the garbage.
Recently, a friend of mine, who cooks for himself, asked me why I buy so much takeout food.
“Now you know, Joe, now you know.”
