Scrambled Egg and Zucchini Burritos

We lost a dear friend to cancer, last Saturday morning. Vince fought the good fight and he really thought he had it whipped, even when it spread from prostate to liver. I felt that his declaration of having whipped it was to keep my husband from worrying and me from crying. The last time we talked on the phone, he could tell by the breaks in my voice that I knew better.And I somehow knew that we would never see him again. The memorial potluck is tomorrow and I expect that alot of people will be there. He owned a business, Dirty Deeds Done Cheap, and many of the locals, including us, were grateful to have his services. If a skunk somehow got beneath your house, his guys would trap and remove it. If you got snowed in, he would plow the path of your driveway so that you could get out and in again. His crew would do the hard work that nobody else could or would do.
Vince was also a songwriter. He was gifted that way. His grandfather was the celebrated writer,
Irving Stone, who wrote the book Lust For Life, which happened to be about my third cousin, who was Vincent Van Gogh. Vince and my husband recorded some of Vince's songs together, as Mr. P is an awesome lead guitarist who just seemed to know what Vince wanted for his songs. We, too, have a home recording studio. And Vince gave Mr. P permission to use any of the songs he wished to use. And as for Vince as a person? He was a mench.
The word 'casserole' comes to mind. My world has been saddened and changed by death many times in the last three years, and not once did anyone ever bring me a casserole. You know, the one that friends bring to the bereaved on family TV movies. But, yes, it dawns on me that casseroles are for the memorial after the funeral, where many people attend, as like tomorrow afternoon.
Some come to mourn, some come to tell stories of the deceased, and a couple will come just to make certain that the old bastard is really dead, along with the secrets taken to the grave. Morbid curiosity was never lost on me. But I never saw fit to keep a casket open for all to see while they stand in line to pass by and view The Dead One while the cameras come out and take pictures, with flash, of...The Dead One. I look upon this practice as despicable....
Music to drink Tomato Schnapps by,...a little old woman wearing sensible shoes pays hymnal organ because that's all she knows how to play. No boogie woogie or rock n' roll. No blues. No jazz or gypsy funk for Granny Grunt. Never mind what the deceased would have wished for.

You think that you really know someone, like your grandma, only to innocently discover she's got a tattoo on her knee when you sit together on the porch steps for a glass of freshly squeezed lemonade. Aw, it was nothing, really. Just her initials. Grandpa did it to prove to her that he wasn't causing their show rabbits any pain when he tattooed I.D. numbers inside of their ears. So, see? No pondering needed there. But, boy, was it weirdly funny when the mortician put rouge and lipstick and eyeshadow on her face. Grandma NEVER wore makeup. This artistic rendering of 'pretty' upon my grandmother's corpse made her look like a clown, and my mother was horrified.She made them wash ot off RIGHT NOW. I had to stifle giggles and snarks while this drama ensued. Because it had nothing to do with a mistake. Uh uh. This upset was about making a pious old woman look like the whore of Babylon. Did you know that there are colleges for corpse cosmetology? I once considered doing that for a living.
Okay. So you can pick your jaw up off the floor, now. I'm over it.

Yet again, the basics of this recipe came from my grandmother Jeanette. I was living with her for a few months and I was a vegetarian, at that time. No meat, no fowl or fish, but I did drink milk and eat cheeses and butter. Basically, I wouldn't eat anything with eyes. Just about every evening when I'd get home from work, I would fry up some zucchini and onions, and put thin slices of cheddar on buttered toast. Grandma couldn't stand this ritual any longer, so she got in there and added egg to it and fried it up so that I'd be sure to get some protein in my diet.She didn't like this vegetarian business one bit. I even used the Bible as reference to that, God forbade us from eating cloven-hoofed animals and shellfish. Therefore, if any meat is unclean then ALL meat was unclean. And if it's unclean to eat shellfish, what makes the other fish so special that we are allowed to eat it? Her explanation of seasonal poison in shellfish was sound, but then, why would God forbid us to eat certain animals and then turn around and say that we could? Truthfully, my diet had nothing to do with adhering to scriptures, but if I wanted to keep Grandma engaged in conversation with me, it had to center around The Lord.

Scrambled eggs and onions and zucchini are wonderful rolled up in a soft flour tortilla stuffed with lots of grated Jack cheese and homemade salsa. It would be ten more years before I would entertain this mixture as a burrito and using salsa with it.

So far, Mr. P is the only one I know who doesn't like it. It seems that, lately, just about everything I want to bake or cook gets a sneer of disapproveal and a firm,"I don't like that and you can't make me eat it. I told you I don't like it, but you go and make it anyway". But you see, I'm a seasoned veteran of care-and-feeding psychology, and you would be surprised by what can be achieved when you answer sweetly, "But, who said it's for you?"

SCRAMBLED EGG AND ZUCCHINI BURRITOS with Linda's salsa
Pink Elephants coffee Cafe

First, make your salsa, or mine:

1 14.5-oz. can petite diced tomatoes (do not use fresh tomatoes) and the juices
4 to 5 Tbsp. vegetable oil
splash of sesame oil (optional)
1/3 cup water
1 large clove elephant garlic, minced
5 green onions, sliced thin (use only if eating all the salsa in three days)
1 medium-sized yellow onion, finely chopped
1 leek, thinly sliced (soak first, to get sand out)
5 serrano chilies, thinly sliced
3 yellow wax chilies, thinly sliced (ripe peppers will be dark yellow, or turning orange)
1/2 to 1 tsp. garlic salt, to taste
8 shakes of black pepper
1 tsp. regular chili powder

1. Put all chilies in a collander, rinse well and let drain.
2. Empty canned tomatoes into large bowl, including juices. Add water, vegetable oil, and a shake or two of sesame oil and stir to combine.
3. Add minced garlic clove (you can quickly fry it in oil to toast, if you like). If using, add thinly sliced green onions, and finely chopped yellow onions, and the thin slices of the leek. Stir it up to combine.
4. Slice all the chilies quite thin. Discard the seeds, but it is desirable to have a small amount. They make the salsa hot, but the serranos are very hot as is. The full heat won't be evident until the next day, when all of the flavors have married well. However, this salsa is tasty enough to use the same day it's made.
5. Add chilies to bowl mixture and stir it all up to distribute them well.
6. Add garlic salt, garlic powder, salt, pepper and chili powder. Stir it all up and taste to see if you need to add anything to taste. You shouldn't, but it's okay if you want to.
Keep in refrigerator in a big glass jar with an airtight lid. If you use green onions, it should be eaten in three days. If not, it should keep well in fridge for up to 3 weeks.
Note: I don't use fresh tomatoes because they go bad and mushy, and they don't flavor well.

For the burrito mix:

3 medium sized zucchinis, chopped into 1/2" cubes (skin on)
1/2 medium-sized yellow onion, chopped roughly in 1/4" pieces
4 eggs, beaten with a fork until all yellow
1/2 to 3/4 cup salsa, as you like
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil for frying

To add in burrito:
1 cup Jack cheese, grated
1/4 cup salsa
Large flour tortilla (I use Canteca burrito-sized)

1. Clean zucchini. Leaving skin on, cut into 1/2" pieces or cubes.
2. Put into saucepan filled two thirds with boiling water and boil for 5 min..
3. Meanwhile, put chopped onions into large frying pan with the 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil. Fry just until clear. Remove from heat and set aside.
4. Drain zucchini, making sure most of the watery juices drain out. Then pat with paper towels until dry.
5. Turn on heat under fry pan and add the zucchini to the onions. Stir until hot on low heat and then add the hand-beaten eggs, stirring it up to coat all of the egg/zucchini mixture. Add the 1/2 to 3/4 cup salsa and stir it up. Remove from heat when the egg is cooked through.
6. Grate the Jack cheese into small bowl, 1/3 to 1/2 cup, as you like.
7. Heat both sides of a flour tortilla over the stove burner (gas is best, but electric will do on low). Place on plate, heap on the grated cheese, then the mixture, then the salsa with as little juice as possible. Roll it up (as seen in pictures below). Enjoy with sprinkles of salt, a bite at a time, if you like.

Licorice Tea Sorbet

With the wacky weather being late bringing summer to this neck of the woods and going to three digits, I look for refreshing food to gnosh, "a little something" to "tide me over". Oh gosh, the cliches again. How much of our lives mirror the cliches of old women and Jews? I can spot an old wive's tale from a fart away. A bruha doesn't share his words, while the circle of grannies cluck away over the clicking sounds of knitting needles. Cluck or cauldron, take your pick, they seem to possess the ancient wisdoms, from glass cleaners and floor wax to rashes and remedies and female concerns.
I have learned that a fresh cut on the finger can be sealed and healed by wrapping a spider web around it. And many skin problems, including skin cancer, can be dealt with by using a black shea salve. I have the recipe for the salve and will be mixing up a batch to try on myself. And I will let you know how that works out. No, I don't have cancer. I'm one of the few who don't have it. I have skin lesions which the doc says are pre-cancerous.
Mr. P and I have been using a black shea soap, and a goat's milk soap that I make, and we are both elated to finally have a soap that doesn't leave a film and cause itching. It contains no detergents, chemicals or fragrances, and it lathers beautifully. More and more people are developing allergies to fragrances, and the itching from their bath soaps and handbars. For those of us with sensitive skin, almost all commercial soaps have detergents, chemical additives and fragrances that give us itches and rashes, and they smell like the "make a memory" of aromatherapy. Cheap men's cologne comes to mind, like rotten road apples. Mine don't smell and the stuff leaves us "squeaky clean" as They Who Say used to say.

Mr. P hates licorice. But he did like the licorice macarons with chocolate ganache filling that I made for a Christmas reception at the gallery, last year. And even the reception attendees who didn't like licorice enjoyed the macarons. So, I figured it a safe bet to experiment with licorice again when the idea popped into my head to try my detox tea as a sorbet. After all, sorbet is wonderfully refreshing and none too filling. But licorice? Why not! As like aromatherapy, taste memory is an interesting thing. I associate licorice with wealthy older gentlemen wearing soft leather Italian loafers and grey silk Italian suits with tobacco green shirts,...oh my, I have just described my Dutch grandfather. He was a gorgeous man with white hair, lizard eyes of cold, translucent blue, and had a thick accent that was music to my ears. He passed away in 1961. Not a day has gone by without thinking about him and missing him. I did adore my grandpa.
The first try with this sorbet came out strong and too sweet. Mr. P said it tasted exactly like Good n'Plenty candy. He liked it! I like sweet, but not icky-sweet. So, in this next batch I reduced the sugar and used only 6 tea bags. Next time, I will use 7 bags. Upon opening the container after removing it from the freezer, I could definitely smell the licorice. And yet, the flavor wasn't overpowering.
Note that this recipe uses Every Day Detox tea by Traditional Medicinals. I use that by necessity. But, a detox sorbet? How cool is that! If you like, you can use plain ol' licorice tea. Or you can purchase roots and twig crushings by the pound (or less) at a health food store. Using a coffee bean grinder or mortar and pestle, you really don't want to make a powder, so just give it a couple of pulses to make the pieces small and to wake up the flavor. Cheesecloth will work just fine as a "bag". Use 1 Tbsp. of it per "bag". Frankly, I like the convenience of already-made tea bags. Consider that you will be using 3 1/2 cups of water, and since you will be freezing the tea, you'll want it strong.

LICORICE TEA SORBET
Pink Elephants coffee Cafe

Yield: About 1 quart

3 1/2 cups water
7 tea bags, Every Day Detox by Traditional Medicinals (plain licorice tea will suffice)
3/4 cup white granulated sugar
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 tsp. pure anise extract
1 Tbsp. kirchwasser (optional)

*If tea bags have strings, tie them all onto one string. In a non-reactive saucepot, bring the water to a full boil. Place tea bags in the boiling water, cover with lid and remove from heat. Let steep for at least 4 hours.
*Remove tea bags, gently squeezing any excess out back into the pot. Discard spent bags.
Add sugar to the tea and stir on low heat until sugar is dissolved. Turn off heat. Let cool completely.
*Add lemon juice and anise extract and stir to incorporate. In a covered container place sorbet mixture in refrigerator overnight. Remember to place the container for the ice cream maker in the freezer. It's best to chill the container for 24 hours, although I have found that 15 hours will suffice.
*Remove from fridge. If using, add kirschwasser or other flavorless alcohol, to help keep the sorbet from freezing too hard and becoming unscoopable. The sugar will take care of that, mostly, but I have found that adding the kirschwasser helps with that. It's a little tip from David Lebovitz.
*Pour into your ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer's instructions. Pour into freezer-safe lidded plastic container for at least 4 hours. Overnite is better, but 4 hours will do.
*Approximately 40 minutes before serving, remove from freezer and let soften, lid off.

Listen up: As stated on the box of detox tea, don't drink it or eat it if you have gallstones.

Inspired by and adapted from.....

Once upon an era in Los Angeles, there was a restauranteur named Vic Comer whose cooking my mother adored. This was in the late 1940's and to mid-1950's, a place where Dad often took her to dinner when they were young and cute. Mom raved about the place and possessed three recipes by one of Vic's cooks, a Chinese woman named Mabel Tinloy. It isn't easy to ask a chef for their recipe. In fact, it is downright rude. But Dad was a well known jazz musician and Mom was movie star gorgeous, so they were excused from the formalities of territorial borders and what is normally not acceptible. They were, um,....special.
I know nothing else about this wonderful cook named Mabel Tinloy. Chances are that she is gone,now. If she's still with us and happens upon this mention, I thank her, wherever she may be.For I have used her recipes many times, much to the joy of my dinner guests and spouse.
Mabel Tinloy's recipe uses white rice, green onions, bacon and its drippings, eggs, a few dashes of salt and pepper, and just a few shakes of Worcestershire.
One afternoon, Mother felt like she needed "a little something" and she was determined to have fried rice.She did not have white rice.She did not use brown rice, ever. But she did have a box of chicken-flavored Rice-A-Roni. And she didn't have green onions. But she did have yellow onions, and eggs, and plenty of bacon. No need for the Worcestershire with a seasoning packet. Mind you, such activity initiated by her was rare and unpredictable. And I enjoyed watching her in the kitchen. It was an amusing little circus where a mime shows up instead of a clown. A mime with Tourette's Syndrome. Even the cat would make herself scarce.
What Mother turned out here was quite yummy. But from then on, she continued to use chopped yellow onions, not enough eggs or bacon, and not a shake of salt and pepper. And she couldn't figure out why mine was so much better. Oh, I explained it as sweetly as I could, but she was a creature of habit and it was her habit to fluff me off and refuse to listen. Don't get me wrong. I love all onions, but green onions in fried rice is a marriage meant to be.

Usually Mother would make fried rice only to go with Parmesan Chicken or Pineapple Pork Ribs.She didn't make Asian food. But she loved eating it. Every Mother's Day I would bring Chinese takeout, a nibbler's selection she thought of as food paradise. And it would last her for a week. Such a deal!...
What is it about her generation and those before hers, that everything nice, such as a pair of shoes or a pretty dress, or 'the good chinaware' had to be saved "for special occasions"? Where were these "special" occasions, what were they, and why did they never happen? And so the shoes never came out of the box, and the dress waxed stale in the plastic cover, lost between hangers of other plastic covers with special clothes for "just in case". We were to be content with the everyday clothes which made us feel weary and cheap. But they were "perfectly fine" and there were starving children in Biafra who had no clothes...
Tell me, readers,..if you've never tasted a candy bar, would you feel bad about not having one? And if you never wore clothes, would you miss the fucking candy bar? Yeah, I didn't see the connection, either.
Sweet n' sour shrimp and pork, and egg rolls get soggy overnight, so why not eat it when it's made fresh instead of "saving it for later"? After a couple of days the food will taste like crap and you have ruined Mother's Day for your need to guilt-trip your daughter for not being frugal. And so now you can phone your cousins and church friends and complain that the food was soggy and tasteless. Asshole.
So, how many boxes of shoes do you have in your closet? Do you use the stained tablecloth all the time and save the good ones for only when company comes? Are all of your possessions indexed for some chimera you concoct when company comes? Do you stretch out your meals for a week or two so you can squeeze the poop out of a buffalo nickel? Are there fuzzy little creatures not of this world taking over your refrigerator because throwing it away would be wasting food? If so, here's a little tip from your Uncle Erle: it IS wasted because you didn't eat it! The spiritual school of thought about leftover food is that it is non-nourishing and vibrationally worthless.It is like putting dirty gasoline in your car. No optimum performance is possible with sullied fuel. I would rather eat deep fried goo than stale food...And those fuzzy alien life forms in your fridge? Either, give them names and pet them daily, or else throw them out and sanitize your refrigerator. That stuff is toxic and often lethal.
Mr. P grows frantic with me when there are too many containers in the fridge. Dutifully, he makes it a point to check every little thing for fuzzy space freeloaders. He feels that the refrigerator should be spacious enough to actually see what's in there. Imagine! The food therein should be easily accessible. What a concept! I experiment with recipes, so there are always many small containers of egg yolks, and egg whites,...ginger syrup, jams, jellies, cheeses, crumbly toppings, nuts, granola, yogurts, bread dough, coffees, Kahlua-and-coffee, ganache, cookie dough,...you know the drill. These are what take up all the space while Mr. P has a Donald Duck fit trying to find actual food. And yet, mysteriously enough, I find all of "my" stuff way in the back while the food is front and forward. But, hey, I've got a man who can actually make his own sandwich, so, I'm not going to rag on his ass. Honestly, he gives me very little to complain about. I think I'll keep him.

AN AMERICAN TAKE ON MABEL TINLOY'S FRIED RICE
Pink Elephants coffee Cafe
Adapted from an inspired adaption by Linda's mom

1 box chicken flavor Rice-A-Roni
4-6 strips bacon
6-8 green onions, thinly sliced up to 1/8"
4 medium-to-large eggs, moderately beaten with a fork

1. Using a large non-reactive fry pan, follow instructions on the box to make the rice.
2. While rice is cooking, fry the bacon in a large, non-stick fry pan. Drain done bacon on paper towels. Do not discard the bacon drippings. You should have a good amount of drippings, but some bacon is a dud for that, so add a couple of Tbsp. from your bacon drippings jar in the fridge.If you aren't a saver of bacon drippings, add vegetable oil as a last resort.

3. Slice the green onions thin, to 1/8".

4. When rice is done, stir it up to make sure it's not soppy with liquid. If it is, stir it all up over medium heat, stirring constantly to prevent rice from sticking to pan.Remove from heat and set aside.
5. Add sliced green onions to bacon drippings and cook for about 2 minutes over medium-high heat.Turn off the heat before onions can turn brown.

6. Put the eggs in a small bowl and quickly beat them with a fork. It needn't be totally mixed to yellow. It is desirable not to mix it too much.

7. Add the rice to the bacon drippings/green onion mixture and stir it up to coat all of the rice. Cook on medium-high heat for about 10 minutes, stirring every 2 minutes to prevent sticking to pan. You want the rice fried well until all of the drippings are absorbed.
8. Using your hands, break up and crumble bacon onto rice. Stir to distribute evenly.
9. When rice is about done, pour the beaten eggs all over the top. Reduce heat to low and fold the rice every 2 minutes so that all of the egg gets its turn touching the bottom of the pan.

10. When the egg matter is thoroughly cooked, turn off the heat and stir it up.

Chile Rellenos; 2 Ways

My mom was intimidated by Mexican food, but she loved to eat it. Only problem there was that she never did learn how to eat a taco without splitting the bottom of the shell. And try as I did to show her how to eat a burrito, it would always fall apart and she would then eat it with fork and knife, just as she did with a taco crumbled all over her plate. And try as I did to teach her how to make a simple cheese quesadilla, she would feign helplessness and pout for me to make it for her. If her Mexican gardener would gift her with a rice burrito in a soft tortilla, she was jazzed. But, whenever I offered to make burritos for dinner, she would protest," I don't like RAW tortillas. I want it fried ". No "please", no "thank you". No way, no how. JUST DO IT! Despite that I told her, many times, that an un-fried flour tortilla wasn't "raw", she would call me a liar and accuse me of trying to feed her "crap". But, see, what that was really about was that she couldn't hold a burrito right to save her soul, but she could eat a fried burrito with a fork and not feel foolish. For her, eating tacos and burritos with a fork was written in stone.

My late best girlfriend of 21 years wouldn't eat onions, bell peppers, or spicy food. Because when she was a kid, her mother would frequently make a slosh of hamburger meat with bell peppers and onions and force her to eat it. By "force", I mean that her mother would push her face into the food on the plate. And if Kathy still wouldn't eat it, her mom would grab her by the hair, drag her down the hall and beat her silly with a hairbrush. Great way to get a kid to eat something she has learned to hate.
I do have to brag that I got Kathy to taste my spaghetti sauce, onions and all, and she was totally surprised to find that she liked it. A new toy! I was highly amused by her food choices. Once a week, we would go out for Mexican food, and she would always pick the gringa food at Poncho Villa's, and she would always order only a cheese quesadilla because it was 'safe'. I would rather have gone to Tiny's, where the salsa was so greatly hot that it would burn the tongue if you weren't used to truly hot food. But that was 30 years ago and Tiny passed away. And I'm no longer into luncheon masochism...My stars, how I do miss that woman.
Mr. P is the barbeque meister at our house. Come to think of it, every man who grills thinks he is the greatest at it. It has been my experience that their chicken is underdone and their meat is way overdone and dry. It pisses me off to have to eat the stuff. But, I can truthfully say that Mr. P does perfect steaks and ribs, and snapper wrapped in bacon, and the burning of chiles so that I can easily peel the skins off for burgers, rellenos, and steaks.

I have tried different ways to burn the chiles for peeling off the skins. Dry pan on the stovetop, and the oven broiler, and the toaster oven broiler. But it really is best when they are done on the grate over the coals. The skins peel off without tearing the peppers, and the chore takes mere minutes as opposed to an hour using the other methods. And...and..oh, those peppers smell so much better than the dull results that 'the kitchen way' brings.
Here, you will see the rellenos cooked two ways; baked and fried. Pasillas baked, Anaheim fried, same batter recipe, and two ways to burn the skins for peeling. Believe me, it matters how they are burned, especially if you are going to fry them in deep grease. It really sucks when the cheese slice falls through the bottom and into the hot grease because the chili is torn and won't hold the cheese. You can wrap a torn, stuffed chili with a strand of the pepper, but that's no guarantee the cheese won't fall out. Should you choose to fry yours (my favorite), use caution. I have been badly burned a dozen times. Some of us are so focused on retrieving the fallen cheese that we forget not to put our fingers into the oil. Oh yeah, I did that.

When choosing the chilis at the store, try to get them as ripe as possible without wrinkly skins. Pasillas are fatter and thicker than Anaheims. They are a blackish dark green. Anaheims can really mess with your mind when all you have to choose from are curly. aHA! Another reason to do them on the BBQ where the heat gets evenly distributed. Pick the biggest, flattest ones you can find. Pasillas grow quite a bit bigger, not hard to find. Their flavor is much different from the Anaheims, and their aroma is less desirable, but the Mexicans love them all just the same. And I learned from Mexicans in southern California. No vatos. No essay. Few things are as endearing to me as two of the ancient ones in a bar, slow and stupid with the tequila and a stashed flask of El Presidente, swapping recipes and kissing their fingertips to express their delight with the food. By the gleam in their eyes, you would think they were telling tall tales of short whores.

CHILI RELLENOS - baked

4 Pasilla Chiles, skins off
4 eggs, seperated
1/4 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
4 slices of Jack or Cacique cheese, cut 1/4" thick and 1" wide, slightly shorter than the chilis

1. With these, I used the toaster oven on high, 450F. Do not use foil in a toaster oven! Just place on the small rack in the roasting pan and place in the middle of the oven.
2. Toast until color starts to darken and turn over a few times during roasting with tongs, and burn the chilis all the way around, sides included.

Get them as black as possible. They will puff and bubble, hiss and pop, and fill your kitchen with wonderful aroma. This will take about 20 to 30 minutes. Remove from toaster oven and let cool to room temperature. Place them in the fridge, uncovered, to chill for a few hours, or cover loosely with foil and keep in fridge overnite.
3. When ready to use them, take chiles out of fridge and peel the skins off with your fingers.Roll peppers back and forth between your thumb and forefinger tip to loosen them up and partially part them from the skin. You can peel big portions at a time, or you might have to peel in little bits. Be careful not to rip the peppers open. If this happens, don't lose heart.These will be baked on a parchment-lined baking sheet and you can take a strand of the pepper and wrap it around the the intact part of the chili when it's stuffed with the cheese.
4. Meanwhile, remove eggs from the refrigerator and let stand at room temperature for 30 min.
5. Without lifting them, slice the tops off the peppers and gently remove the seeds, as much as is possible but you need not be anal about it. The peppers are slippery, and so I place my finger about 1/2" from the top and gently push down and slide up to the top to squeeze the seeds out. Gently slide in the cheese slice, one per pepper. Set aside.

6. Preheat oven to 450F with rack in center of oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silpat.
7. Seperate eggs, being careful not to get yolk in the whites. Check for stray shell bits and remove them. They will cling to a shell and come out of the goo much easier than trying to chase them with a finger or a spoon. Pour the egg whites into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Starting on low speed, beat the egg whites for 30-45 seconds. Add salt and turn speed up to medium high for 2 minutes. Turn speed to high. When the whites gain volume and get to really white, gradually sprinkle in the 1 Tbsp. sugar, and beat until glossy and stiff, about 4 to 5 minutes.
8. While the mixer is beating the whites, add 1 1/2 to 2 Tbsp. flour to the yolks in a bowl and mix well with a fork. Mixture will be a little lumpy.

9. When whites are whipped and ready (stiff), remove bowl. Remove whisk and conk on bowl to dislodge egg whites into bowl. Gently pour in egg yolks/flour mixture and gently fold into egg whites being careful not to collapse the whites.

10. Place a stuffed pepper into the batter and coat generously. Remove with slotted spoon and place on lined baking sheet. Do this with each stuffed pepper and place a couple of inches apart if your baking sheet is big enough. If not, don't worry, just place 1" apart instead.

11. Bake for 7 minutes, until puffy and golden. Baked rellenos are dry compared to the fried ones. You really want to serve them in a chosen sauce. My quick sauce is in the recipe below.

CHILE RELLENOS - fried

5 Anaheim chiles, skins off
5 eggs, seperated
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. + 1 1/2 tsp. sugar
3 Tbsp. flour
Vegetable oil or lard for frying (do NOT use olive or other low-heat oil)
5 slices Jack or Cacique cheese, 1/4" thick, 1' Wide, sorter than chiles

1. Bring barbeque to low coal. With tongs, place chiles on grill. Turn every 5 minutes to blacken evenly all the way around. They will puff up and blister and pop a bit. This should take about 30 minutes. When done, with tongs place peppers on plate and let cool to room temperature.Cover loosely and refrigerate overnight.
2. Remove chiles from fridge and follow directions in recipe above for prep.
Prepare the sauce, or you can use store-bought Pace Picante or green chile sauce, whatever you like.
For quick, homemade sauce:
1 14.5-oz. can tomato sauce
1 tsp. cumin, or more to taste
1 1/2 tsp. chili powder, more or less to taste
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. garlic salt
2 good pinches of salt
2 tsp. white vinegar
3/4 tsp. vegetable oil
1/4 cup minced yellow onion

1. In a small bowl, mix all the ingredients together. Pour into clean frying pan and simmer for about 5 minutes. Turn off heat and let sit.
2. Put vegetable oil or lard into large frying pan to about 1"- 1 1/2" deep. Heat on medium high to 375F. To test for readiness, immerse tip of wooden spoon into oil. If the oil immediately fizz-bubbles against the wood, it is ready for frying the rellenos.
3. Gently place two rellenos, or three, into the oil. When egg underneath is golden and cooked, use two slotted spoons, or one spatula and a slotted spoon to turn them over. This is where it gets just a little tricky, as they will resist being turned over.So, ease up the heaviest side to turn it. If the cheese and/or the cheese and pepper fall out to the bottom, scoop underneath it to lift up off the bottom of the pan and hold it there until done, about 40 seconds.

When done, place rellenos on plate and do the last two or three, and then place on plate and set aside.
5. In seperate large frying pan, have your sauce heated up and place all the rellenos into the sauce. Reheat for a minute (they will puff up again). Plate with the sauce poured over them. Enjoy as they are, or serve with Spanish rice and refried beans. I prefer Zatarain's Spanish Rice mix because it's got a great tang.

The manner of dimentia and the patience of a saint...

My Dutch grandmother was a woman above reproach. When she and Grandpa parted, she never so much as dated ever again. Men were tyrants or rascals, no in between. She was a deeply religious, stern and serious woman who wouldn't say "shit" if she had a mouthful. Often, she would scowl and raise that eyebrow so very high. She liked living alone. Her house was meticulously clean, her yard and flower gardens were healthy, and neat as a whistle. And she never wore slacks. Only floosies wore pants. And in conversations, if you weren't speaking only of The Lord, then you were doing the Devil's work. In other words, there wasn't a more perfect person than her for this funny thing to happen to.
No one in their right mind would accuse her of any untoward sins. Upon meeting new people or your friends, the first question (which was moreso an inquiry) would always be,"What church do you go to?" She would disarm you with her handsome smile, and if you said you were Catholic, that sweet expression would quickly shift into her scowl of disapproval. Oh yes, you felt it, all right. She was intense, as Scorpios tend to be.
Jeanette was a registered nurse in a convalescent hospital. The resident parrot in the lobby would squawk and whistle with delight when she reported for work,"Mrs. Van!..Mrs. Van!" I was quite jealous of Grandma's mojo with that bird.

There was a new female patient in her wing, a case of extreme dimentia, and she was always giving Grandma a rough time of it. An angry and hostile woman who Grandma would agonize over when we would give her a ride home from work. I was privy to this episode of her career and I wondered why on earth anyone would want to be a nurse in a place such as that. Every day, this woman would accuse Grandma of trying to steal her husband. Mom and Jim and I were hysterical with laughter that anyone could think such a thing about her, of all people. She was hurt and infuriated by it and she didn't understand why we thought it was so funny. Heathens we were, slated to burn in Hell at birth.
One day, she'd had quite enough of this nasty old woman who, once again, accused her of trying to steal the husband. Grandma looked the woman dead in the eyes and said," Now, you know better than that. I would never do that to you". The woman fired back," Well, it wouldn't do you any good, anyway. He's been dead for twenty years!"
I'm sure it was a dead goldfish moment.

There is nothing new about cooking chicken or fish in Wishbone Italian Dressing. Despite that many know about it, there are just as many who don't. It can be fried or baked. I prefer it fried because it is more zingy than baked. Either way, what looks like 'burned' isn't really. It makes the most delicious skin! But here, we will go with it baked with special potatoes.
I don't know where the recipe originated. Mother made it , 30 years ago, and it is still one of my favorite ways to eat chicken. Mind you, it must be Wishbone brand Italian Dressing.Over 30 years, I have found that none of the other brands I've tried have that special "zing". And you will be amazed how tender it makes the yardbird.
The potato butterflies came from one of those recipe cards that come in the mail, to tempt you into joining a recipe club. I found it in Mother's recipe box, one of the many she never tried. My mother hated cooking, and her baking never came out right. It was because she wouldn't grasp that there is a difference between dry and liquid measuring cups. Time and time again there were tears and frustration over her latest flop, and I would reiterate that you don't measure flour or sugar with a liquid measuring cup. She saw this as an opportunity for one-upmanship rather than as a helpful tip. Easier to snip and snap,"Well, I'VE never heard that before, so, it can't be true"....Moms piss me off, sometimes.

BAKED CHICKEN AND POTATO BUTTERFLIES in WISHBONE ITALIAN DRESSING
Serves 4

4 large chicken thighs (leave skin on)
1/3 bottle of Wishbone Italian salad Dressing
4 whole potatoes, peeled and rinsed
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter, salted or unsalted, and melted (or 1/4 cup garlic olive oil)
One huge clove of Elephant garlic, sliced thin or roughly chopped, if using the oil
Light olive oil, if using instead of melted butter for potatoes
Fresh parsley, chopped fine for garnish (if dried, sprinkle on potatoes to bake)

1. One day ahead, make the garlic olive oil, if using instead of butter for potatoes. In a small, clean jar with a lid, pour in light olive oil to desired fullness. Thinly slice and, if you like, chop roughly. Add to the oil. Attach lid and place in cupboard, and allow to infuse for 24 hours. Then take a big whiff and do the Happy Dance.
Preheat oven to 350F with rack in middle of oven.
2. Squirt a little Wishbone in bottom of casserole baking dish. The dish should be only large enough to snugly fit the potatoes and chicken thighs. Place chicken thighs in dish atop the little bit of dressing. Set aside.
3. Peel and rinse off the potatoes and pat dry with a paper towel. Place one potato alongside a wooden spoon on cutting board. Hold securely in place with one hand and using a large knife, gently slice 1/8" to 1/4" sections, as you desire, meeting the knife blade to the wooden spoon to prevent cutting too far through the potato.

Be extra careful not to cut the tips off. If you do, it won't ruin the potato, but it will lose its poetry in presentation. Do this with all 4 potatoes and place, sliced sides up, in casserole with the chicken thighs. Slightly fan out the potatoes and with a spoon,drizzle the garlic oil or melted butter over them and in between the sliced sections. If using dried parsely flakes, sprinkle just a little over the potatoes. It's okay to scoop a few garlic pieces out of the jar and place on top of the potatoes, if you like. Over chicken only, squirt Wishbone, enough to coat tops and sides. Coat only; do not fill the dish.

4. Bake, uncovered, for one hour, 10 minutes more if chicken isn't done. Skins should be browned, and any blackened areas are fine. 15 minutes before it is done, squirt more Wishbone on the chicken, and baste the potatoes with the bubbling chicken fat, then put back into oven until done. Check the potatoes at 40 minutes into the baking, and if they are getting too brown, loosely cover casserole dish with foil until chicken is done.If using fresh parsley, sprinkle it over the potatoes at this time.