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".