GET THAT MAN OUT OF THE KITCHEN!

When we invited people over for dinner, they never ask "What's cooking?"  Then ask,

"Who's cooking?"

 

If I am the Cook Du Jour, they invariably find some lame excuse like: I think my Mother

died today.  Huh!  I've heard that one before.

 

As Marie Antoniette said, "Let them eat cake...from Ingles."

 

I'm creative in the kitchen.  I think of it as a chemistry lab with pots and pans.  Just because a potato is white doesn't mean you have to serve it that way.  I learned that

years ago when I was in college.  I would get home from school oftentimes earlier than

my wife got home from work.  I made mashed potatoes, but I discovered food colors so I would make them green with pink gravy.  I thought it looked great but my wife turned away in disgust.  And she threw away the food coloring.

 

I admit that I am sort of messy in the kitchen.  A chef needs assistants.  Check the ones on TV...they are never washing dishes as they go or worrying about how many

pots and pans they are using.  My oven has so many drippings on the bottom, I could

make a meatloaf.  And I think I might.

 

I love meatloaf.  (The Saluda Grade Cafe has fantastic meatloaf, by the way.)  I come from a long line of meat eaters and meatloaf is our meat of choice...perhaps it's because not everyone still has their God-given teeth and meatloaf is easy to gum.

 

Everybody in our family loves meatloaf and we have an annual meatloaf cooking contest.  We even have a shirt that says: Don't Let Your Meat Loaf.

 

I am ashamed to say that I have been eliminated more than once.  Last year I made my meatloaf in a muffin pan....12 perfect little meatloafs.  My oldest daughter is very bossy when it comes to competitions.  She put herself in charge and immediately

eliminated me without the judges even getting a taste.

 

"This is NOT a muffin-cooking contest.  It's a loaf we're looking for and these are

meat MUFFINS.  You're out of the race!" she announced.

 

Guess who won?  She did with a Mexican meatloaf.  I have to admit that it was very

tasty, but she should have shaped it like a sombrero.

 

We also have a chili cooking competition.  I have a placque in the State of Virginia for winning the chili competition there.  My chili is called "My Lips Have Taste The Glory of

The Coming of the Lord" chili.  I also won for Longest Name.

 

But in my family (with the same Bossy Judge) my chili got eliminated.  Why?  "Because it is not red, and everyone knows that chili has to be red."

 

I made White Chili.  I know it sounds like some sissy thing from California but it had real buffalo meat and three types of white beans.  And it was darn good.

 

"But it isn't RED!", my daughter proclaimed.

 

"But it will burn the hairs out of your nose and the tequila will make you hallucinate.

That's what counts."

 

"No cowboy would ever eat this," she countered.

 

"If he rode side-saddled he might".

 

 

 

PHAT PHIL FROM PHILLIE

When I was in Basic Training at Fort Jackson, S.C. years ago, we had a guy in our platoon named Phat Phil From Phillie.  We didn't call him that to his face.  But that's what everybody called him when they talked about him.  He was fat. He was from Philadelphia.  And his given name was

Phil.

 

     He was what people called a Whop.  We didn't call him that to his face either.  He was Italian.  We

were friendly with Phat Phil for one reason alone:  His Mother, a fine Italian woman herself, would send him huge boxes in the mail.  They were stuffed with all kinds of delicacies---cookies, cakes, salami, pasta sauce in jars, cheeses.  We thought pizza was the only food that Italians ate, but Phil's

momma introduced us to a world of good eating.

 

     When the mailman called out Phil's name at mail call and we would see the big box from home, we would quickly gather around his bunk in anticipation of his opening the package.  We were like little birds waiting to be fed.  Little vultures.

 

     Phil liked all the attention so he generously passed out samples, telling us what each thing on the menu was.  Usually everything was eaten within half an hour and poor Phil had to go back to being an ordinary fat soldier until the next package came from home.

 

     The packages gave us a great idea.  My friend Blair and I wrote to our mothers, aunts, cousins and most of the girls in our senior high school class.  We told them we were in the War.  (Actually we enlisted three days before the Korean War was technically over.)  We told them the Army was

starving us to death and begged them to send anything that wouldn't spoil en route.

 

      My Mother came through right away (I was an only child).  We were smart enough to pay the mailman to put our packages into our laundry bags which hung on the end of our bunks.  We didn't want a throng of guys attacking us like we attached Phat Phil.

 

      I can't tell you how happy we were to come in from a day of marching and see the shape of a

box in our laundry bag.

 

      We already Had a plan in mind.  We would carry the bag out as if we were going to the laundromat.  But instead of going there, we both crawled under the barracks which was about

two and a half feet off the ground.  We dragged our goodies behind us.  When we got under the building far enough not to be seen, we sat and carefully opened the box.

 

     My Mother wasn't Italian but she was Southern, so she knew how to put together a satisfying

CARE package for her only son.  She had cans of Vienna Sausage and Potted Meat,  Crackers of

various kinds, sardines, bananas and peanut butter.  She sent pimento cheese sandwiches already

made and wrapped in tinfoil.  They travelled surprisingly well.

 

     Our big problem was the height of the barracks.  We could take a bit of a sandwich, but our necks were bent over so much we couldn't swallow anything.

 

     I sent Blair back into our barracks to get our two field shovels.  When he came back, we dug

a hole large enough to sit in with our heads held high.  We called it our "Dining Room" and dine,

we did.

 

     Every day more packages arrived.  Some were just cookies or candy.  But we also started

getting canned hams.  We needed to get our dining room better organized for opening and slicing

ham.  I wanted to make a little table but we couldn't find any scrap wood.  So we started wearing

our ponchos to keep the grease off of our clothes.  One person asked what kind of laundry detergent we used because we always smelled so edible when we came in from one of our feasts.

 

     We didn't share our food with anybody, nor our secret dining spot.  If you went to Fort Jackson

today, the hole is probably still under the building with a lot of empty Vienna Sausage cans.  Our

mailman started making us give him monthly payments to keep his mouth shut.  We should have stuffed it with one of Phat Phil's salamis.