Though I am no superhero, I do have one super power: I make people happy by cooking for them. I acquired this skill unknowingly by serving as Annie’s apprentice for forty years, give or take a year or two. Only we don’t call it apprenticing here in the kitchen: I was Annie’s sous chef.
I had no clue at any point in time that I possessed such a skill set, nor could I ever have foreseen a time when those skills would be pressed into service. And this is probably as good of a time as any to say I also could never have imagined trying to step into Annie’s shoes and cook for the farm staff either, but such has been my path.
A few seasons ago, I hurt-in no particular order-one of my toes, both of my shoulders, here a knee, there a knee, everywhere an ouchie, so I stopped to assess matters. Planting and maintaining 300 tomato plants and processing much of the harvest, left me a bit more tattered than cannabis could keep up with: My body was trying to send a message, but there was seemingly no one home to receive it.
This varies hugely from a tuppie of produce now-to one in September. What I find these days are the brassicas which include cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts (on the vine), broccoli and romanesque. Cooking greens are in every week’s CSA packet, along with salad greens, scallions, baby turnips, leeks, shallots, radishes and garlic. In late summer I would see cucumbers, tomatoes, summer squash, eggplant, salad greens, peppers of all sorts, and any other hot weather veggies that you would expect to find at the farmers’ market.
What continues to boggle my pea-brain is that Annie was only up to doing two of these meals per week, simply because it required so much prep. She made lists of what needed to be cooked, what needed to be purchased in town, what needed to be done and when it needed to be done by. I simply followed directions.
And I was going to cook five days a week? It was exactly what the doctor might have prescribed. Only eight weeks removed from Annie’s passing, I plunged into a world that required the same type of lists as the ones Annie produced, only I did them in my head. And then I reviewed them morning, noon and night, much the way a school teacher reviews in his mind exactly what it is fourth period social studies with the eighth grade looks like, on Tuesday. I kept my mind engaged in such a tight vise grip of planning that there was little room for anything else.
But I am not here to prattle on about me; I want to discuss cooking. Whereas joy is more likely to be associated with the bedroom than cooking, I have found joy in the kitchen. And before you roll your eyes and scroll on, let me quickly add that I am retired so I have the time, inclination and ingredients to be able to cook for the farm crew.
I find joy in cooking because there is so much to be said for cooking as an art. I especially like it when I can devise new ways to do old things. Recently I decided to experiment with baking corn tortillas instead of cooking them in sizzling oil. This is not because of the six-inch long burn I incurred one day last summer, when the tortilla I was flipping, flopped.
I inadvertently allowed the tortilla to belly-flop as it were, propelling a jet stream of oil to the back of my right wrist. There it plopped and flowed down my wrist and the back of my hand like lava to the base of my index finger.
Setting aside joy for the moment, I pinched off a goodly amount of the aloe vera plant and thwarted some serious discomfort. I also managed to conceal the fact that this had occurred until it was healed. Then it was OK to bring it all up, if for no other reason than to try and determine if this were a senior-or a stoner-moment.
As a direct result of this mishap, I found myself determined to find a way to cook the tortillas that did not include sizzling oil. There were several recipes to choose from but the easiest just had me brushing on a minimal amount of olive oil to both sides of the tortillas and then baking them for about seven minutes on each side at 400 degrees. I can put four of them on a big cookie sheet and there is no spattering oil to dodge.
Take matters one step further and I was also baking taquitos instead of plopping them into sizzling oil. I start by flipping a corn tortilla onto the red-hot griddle for ten seconds per side, which softens it up. Next I brush olive oil only on the outer side of the corn tortilla and then fill it with seasoned, shredded chicken.
I place the taquitos folded-side down and bake them for about twenty minutes at 425 degrees, checking a few times along the way. They come out crunchy like they are supposed to, only a lot healthier.
At the rate these cookies fly out of the stand, I am inclined to call them superheroes, but like me, they aren't. They just make folks feel happy,
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