For Crying Out Loud

Or, that is how it felt to me. The first night we just reheated leftover Persian food cooked by Nassim (yes, the same Nassim who came to Mid Winter a few years ago). The next night we made chili. I already commented on the chili on Mara's blog.

Now let me tell you the rest of the story. Vicky was my co-cook. We have many similarities. Four kids, almost the same ages. We are the same age, were married within months of each other, each have a child serving in the Holy Lands. But our cooking styles are not the same. (I must say, though, she was very willing to go along with things that were strange to her.)

Anyway, she suggested chili and said something about 5 pounds of ground beef, but what to do with the vegatarians in our midst? So I offered to make the vegatarian chili (see comments in Mara's blog for the recipe. It is one of my better ones.) I had so much fun. Chopping, sauteing, stirring, baking, and some more chopping. Vicky had never seen chili served with toppings, at least not that many toppings. Sour cream and cheddar, but none of the other stuff. Well, we put the chili pots on the table and sat back to watch. Who took which chili? And who came back for which?

There really was an iron chef feel to the whole experience, with the commentary of the judges. As I was cooking, I could almost hear the color commentary, "And she is rummaging through the fridge looking for things to throw in. Look, she found some red peppers chopped, but there are carrots chopped with the peppers. What is she going to do? Look! she is adding the carrots to the pot, with the chili!" Some of the comments of the 'judges' were, "May I have your recipe? I think my family would like this." "I wish I were a vegatarian." "It's not often the vegatarian offering looks better than the regular meal."

Well, this just spurred me on. We had the next night off because Robert Rhines made the paellea (okay, so I don't know how to spell it . . .) The next night was a potato bar night. I made a cheese sauce, as well as bacon, reheating the chili, whatever. I also made fresh zucchini and I was looking for tarragon to season it with. There was none in the kitchen! I think Vicky was as surprised that I expected to find it as I was surprised to find that she didn't have any in her kitchen.

That wasn't the exciting part. We were to make brunch the next morning. So I'm thinking Brunch, but Vicky is thinking brunch, but she doesn't tell me till later. She just lets me run with it. So I made a Basque omelet. (I went to the library and researched recipes for Basque omelets. There are almost as many as there are recipes for gauzpacho or spaghetti sauce.) Since there are so many, I get the gist and create my own. I have a recipe for it at home, but I didn't feel confident that I could remember it.

I also made oven roasted rosemary potatos and a Mexican bread pudding. It is actually a Lent dish, created to use up leftover as you are cleaning out for Easter. And I was cleaning out. Someone had gotten tons of bread, mostly buns, which were just taking up room in the freezer. I dried the bread for several days. And there were some tired looking apples that no one was eating. And some craisins, and the rest of the cashews from the chili, and some almonds. You get the picture. Anyway, it was pretty good. Again, I didn't have the actual recipe, so I used a basic bread pudding recipe and the concept and put it together myself. To round this out, Vicky made some muffins for the kids on real restricted diets and cut up some fresh fruit. It was quite a layout. She had a camera with her. We should have taken pictures.

Anyway, the punch line is that after I put all this out, she say, "I had been thinking brunch, like late breakfast. You know something like pancakes and scrambled eggs." Now she tells me. Did I mention she is from Iowa?