As you already know, cooking has made me a more creative and organized person. I've made a few more complicated dishes which leaves me wondering why I cannot simply boil and peel an egg.
I learned from my Mom (after the fact) that older eggs work best for boiling and peeling. I bought cage free eggs but I don't think it's just the age of the egg that's hurting me here. I think it's the heating/cooling procedures.
That's why I asked my Grandma to boil the last batch for me. Then I took them home and refrigerated them. They froze. It was bad. Eggs apparently freeze at lower temperatures. My deviled eggs looked like poo. But I made a
curried deviled eggs recipe and they actually tasted just fine.
The recipe required a few items that you don't find in your average egg: lime, yogurt (I used Greek) and curry. Greek yogurt is a tremendous replacement for a lot of fatty foods. The protein content alone is worth the substitution.
This left me curious about how creative I could get with deviled eggs. So today, I formulated a few recipes that I will, at a later date, experiment with until perfected.
These are the egg delicacies I have created so far:
Green (Deviled) Eggs and Ham
Loaded Baked Potato
Greek Eggs
The Chicken Be For the Egg
I can't tell you all my secrets, but I plan to use
Underwood spreads in several of the recipes. You probably don't know the name right off hand, but I'm sure you've seen the symbol:
If I could pick out a pointless job, it would be to read the crap posted on the websites of various companies. Today I learned how B&G Foods is wrapped up with MIT, food science, and the history of potted meats. Fascinating, I tell you.
I picked up a few books that mention Underwood deviled ham and potted meats. You'll recognize The Virginian and another best seller from a few years ago The Poisonwood Bible.
But I couldn't read up on deviled ham without thinking of a story I wrote four years ago.
I'll keep you posted on how all the devilish cooking is panning out.
Devilish Whisper
"The devil's voice is sweet to hear." --Steven King
The jeep came
to an abrupt halt onto a gravel-laden half circle, the opposite side of
the winding road. You could miss it if it weren't something to expect
from having traveled here before.
He had, half a dozen times,
being a rugged man, fan of nature and of beast. The month was May,
welcoming in the proverbial flowers her April cousin had paved the way
for with a spattering of intermittent showers.
And the earth had
showered this morning, very early, as had he, welcoming in his expecting
wife and enjoying the intimacy she provided even as her belly grew.
The
driver's side door opened and a weathered and worn Doc Marten boot,
size 12, hit the dirt, extinguishing the half-smoked butt that had just
been discarded by its owner. He knew his destination was just around the
corner, yet he drew it from the crumpled soft pack he may as well have
left in the passenger's seat instead of the glove compartment.
It
was habitual. There were times on the road like this he smoked his
Camels by the caravan: he didn't necessarily know where the train was
going, just that he would suddenly arrive.
The ipod was a gift, a
thoughtful one, but his marriage to the jeep had lasted for over 10
years, the affair only growing more passionate with signs of rust and
wear, and their routines together were not only hard but undesirable to
break, so the ipod lay dormant underneath the crumpled Camels and the
antique lighter.
He had pulled the heavy suitcase of c.d.s from
underneath his seat and could choose them without hardly looking as they
enjoyed their position on the passenger's seat. When he rode with his
family or friends, he might allow the songs to play in session: now
alone, he made his selections in a manner that may have appeared finicky
and agitated to others, only making melodic harmony with his own
frustrated pattern of emotions.
A young man on his sports bike
was just leaving. He peered through his helmet at the visitor and nodded
in acknowledgment. The visitor peered back, a stocky 6'1, dirty blond
hair pulled back into a pony tail, give or take the tangled wisps of
hair yanked out by the jeep's open windows. He situated them behind his
ears and tucked his cigarettes into his back right pocket.
And
the younger girl who climbed behind her partner starred in his direction
before placing herself on the narrowed seat and applying her helmet: he
was strong in appearance, this stranger, a shadow on his face as rough
as his hands must have felt, so she fantasized as she hugged the slender
frame of the boy in front of her. There was a longing inside of her to
know his breed--handsome and hung out to dry--as she sped away behind
one of the many males she would use to climb that fantasy ladder.
He
had hopes of being alone today, placing his hands on his hips and
leaning backwards. His back reminded him that he was much older than the
number his age defined, if not for the years of construction in his
younger days or the bar room brawls endured throughout the evenings of
escape, then because of the same construction and brawling that remained
in his own soul as he seeped in his surroundings.
The valley was
laid out before him, a post card or a postscript, all one and the same
as he was in the habit of searching for a message from somewhere beyond
these tangible hillsides. Years ago, he looked for a sign and gave it a
time limit, then shoved it in the glove compartment along with the smoke
and fire, relinquishing all notions of an afterlife to eternal
damnation.
A car containing a middle-aged couple from
Pennsylvania rounded the corner, disrupting his thoughts and the dusty
gravel beneath it. He cursed under his breath and started down the hill,
thanking an illusion that the over-pass was not too steep.
He
situated himself upon a log, surrounded by a motley crew: there were
weeds amongst wildflowers, aged trees beside saplings, and peppered
throughout the natural recipe the evidence of mankind. There lay a beer
can, a candy wrapper, a pattern of debris one would hope not to imagine
in such a setting, yet had almost come to expect.
He fingered the
muddy candy wrapper that read,"Snickers Satisfies." He considered the
new "Hungry?" campaign and concluded that whoever discarded the fading
shell must have visited here many moons ago. Then his thoughts shifted,
shaded by a simple, multi-million dollar jingle.
He was satisfied
when his first son was born, around the same time he pursued his
treasured Wrangler. The day they discovered the sex he prioritized the
purchase that would take them to the same places he and his father had
journeyed together. This was not his childhood home, but it was not his
duty to provide the same surroundings as much as it was his
responsibility to reestablish an identical, paternal pattern--to fill in
for his own, somehow, a replica of the knot--now in his stomach--that
ties itself between a father and a son.
There had been a
satisfaction in his bride and now, more so, the pride he owned in the
loyalty he provided, despite the side-ways glances of many a lady behind
leery boys on bikes.
Perhaps it was his duty to establish the
same surroundings, although not from a car seat strapped in the back of a
vehicle. In his mind he saluted his father as he kissed his wife
goodnight or as he stumbled in drunk from a night with his fellows,
having chosen not to find himself on another woman's sofa, only his own.
Yet there was this hunger...
He
dropped the wrapper and wiped his fingers on his blue jeans, then
leaned forward to balance his forearms on his knees. Peering at the
litter of beer bottles before him, he remembered his right back pocket.
It wasn't until the cigarette reached his lips that he remembered the lighter, growing warmer inside its compartment.
Cursing
again, more because of his habit of forgetfulness than the pilgrimage
up hill, he almost resigned himself to a premature departure.
The couple was still present, holding hands and beaming at the view.
"Isn't
it beautiful?" Immune to the power he possessed over young ladies on
motorbikes, the woman, who obviously moved to Pennsylvania judging from
her pasty-white Minnesota accent, eyed the stranger with an expectation
of reciprocated delight.
He smiled fiercely and waved, then
turned to his jeep and mumbled,"Don't look down, bitch," and laughed,
not at the statement, but only his own twisted sense of humor. He dared
to sit among the rubbish and enjoy the reality of the comprehensive
scenery.
Cigarette lit, lighter in breast pocket, he descended again to rest by the wayside.
The
water bottle he kicked down the incline read "Pure Life" which held
irony as he had made plans for the container to graduate into an ash
tray.
He may have been willing to accompany the trash and even
utilize it if need be, but he would not take blame for adding to the
contamination.
The ash sizzled as the abandoned bottle's owner
must have added it to the man-made mosaic recently. That, he thought, or
it too had showered with him this morning.
He stole his last
drag and dropped the exhausted butt in the bottle and gave it a shake.
He rested it behind him on the other side of the log and joined his
hands together again to rest upon his knees.
His eyes wandered
rapidly back and forth between the mountains and valleys below. The sky
matched the blue-green of his eyes. The rolling clover below took him
back into the arms of his aging Irish grandfather, who always called him
"lad," as did his father. They had both passed away, to reside in his
memory alone, sharing that burial plot with the squint in his eyes when
he laughed and the same painfully obvious trait in his youngest son.
It was the only sign he acknowledged now as he bitterly regretted ever asking for evidence elsewhere.
And
last September, he hooked his arm around his wife and kissed her yellow
hair as they escaped the family to enjoy the same scene. She believed
in something, albeit unnamed, and leaned into his side as the golden
glory of the autumn changes mirrored her mane of hair. She had her own
demons that sometimes hosted parties for their neighbors next door.
And
as they rocked together that night in perfect unison, as mystery
relented, giving way to familiarity, something just as inexplicable as
the portrait before him knit itself together in its mother's womb. In
this moment he considered that burden of shifting his father's bones for
the third time in his life.
He got up to relieve himself against a tree, hoping the bitch from Minnesota might peek down and really take in some scenery.
He
laughed--a rapid, raspy chuckle that matched everything about him. As
his stream started to wane, he shook himself and zipped his fly. He
noted something winking at him from below, not the sort of debris that
had already blended itself into the scenery. He bent to retrieve it.
"What the fuck?"
He
remembered the small cans from his grandmother's pantry. The white
labels stuck out among the red, saucy labels picturing the man in the
white chef's hat granny purchased just for him. He wasn't sure why, but
he never liked the looks of those wicked, little jars.
The sun
and rain had done a number on the lettering, but apparently the little
red devil had been buried face down. He smiled, pitchfork upturned,
dancing a little jig and delightfully doing unimaginable damage to the
poor, afflicted ham. This was an older label, as this devil looked a
little too Halloween and not enough cartoon for the holder's liking.
And then he did something that would make him feel silly later on that day, and for days to come.
At
first, he thought it might be too wet, but as it happened, neither rain
nor urine seemed to affect it. He reached into his breast pocket and
traded the deviled ham wrapper in his right hand for the lighter in his
left.
"Burn in hell, mother fucker," he whispered to himself,
intending the statement to sound reminiscent of his advice to the
oblivious woman on the ledge above. He noted his failure as the attempt
at humor evaporated from his lips.
The lighter ignited the paper
in a flash and spread in just such a manner. The impassioned flame
consumed the paper label in a solid second, down to his forefinger and
thumb, singeing his skin as he quickly snapped the remaining chard, like
he was packing chewing tobacco in a can.
"God damn it!" The
exclamation was much louder than he expected, no prisoner to pain, and
echoed after him, ricocheting back from the scenic escape.
But the devil had vanished, unlike his neighbor upstairs.
"You ok down there?" The stranger's face showed genuine concern, never acknowledging the former or the latter curses.
"Yeah.
Yeah, I'm ok. I just slipped a little." And in his humanity he
sheepishly recognized his deep desire not to have been seen in his
moment of exposure.
Recovering quickly, he composed himself and
bypassed the log, lighting his last cigarette and making a new path
through the refuse and fallen foliage.
He nodded at the couple,
now returning to their car. Back in the driver's seat, he gripped the
steering wheel, Camel smoking, breathing in fumes and the last view of
what he had traveled to see.
Or, he thought, as he sucked his simmering fingers, what he had come NOT to see.
Without
looking, he flipped through the several pages of his musical journal
and extracted a Guns N Roses c.d. from its pocket. For today--for an
undetermined amount of time--this was the only paradise city he was
capable of holding onto.
Behind him he left the only evidence of his arrival and departure in the borrowed, Pure Life bottle below.
