Living Dangerously

"What do you call this?" The question from my father-in-law caught me off-guard, interrupting thoughts on the very subject of how my dinner’s offering and results was tasting to me. I laughed at the question. Since he eats once a week with us and once a week with his other son and daughter-in-law, who is a GREAT cook, I am somewhat defensive about my culinary skills or lack thereof. My husband has been a good sport over the years, to have consumed many less than stellar offerings of a culinary nature. Unfortunately, my mother-in-law was also a great cook. Her 18 years cooking influence on her son has never been diminished by the 41 years he has been subjected to my adventurous cooking.

When you make a paste of flour and water (the very ingredients for glue) and then cook it, quite a bit of cuisine-ly machinations has to take place before it can be called "somewhat tasty." If coming times are going to be trying, it won’t hurt to have a modicum of ingredients to spice it up, to make a paste of flour and water taste decent.

With that said, I was in a reverie of thought about how this particular repast was tasting and wondering how "the guys" were receiving the impressions in their mouths. I was thinking that what I had made seemed a little thick and gummy and that I hadn’t added enough chile seasoning to compensate for what other virtues the food lacked in taste.

I had started with some chicken stock, a good beginning and enhancement to flour and water paste. There was some onion flavor, which argument with my children always ends in a stalemate - "but I don’t like onion - it’s only there for flavor, you don’t even see any chunks - but I don’t like the flavor - but it makes it taste better" - whatever, whatever! I added a smidgeon of butter, always a flavor enhancer. I tried not to go overboard on the salt – salt can be redemptive with flour and water but can be its downfall if too salty. Then there was a can of green chile, some plain yogurt for tang and smoothness – it would have been better with sour cream, the complete and intact kind of sour cream, as opposed to fat free sour cream, designated as "whole wheat" sour cream. At our house, any ingredient which is "good for you" and not the calorie rich version is denigrated as a "whole wheat" substance, no matter what it is. Plain yogurt is considered a "whole wheat" ingredient but it does help to improve flour and water paste.

There was the assembling of the cooked, enhanced paste, combining it with cheese, tortillas, pieces of cooked chicken breast, chopped onions on the guy’s concoctions, not on mine and out of the self-doubting consumption of my portion, I heard "What do you call this?" I laughed but didn’t want him to think I was laughing at him, so I explained. This is my version of Sonoran-style layered enchiladas, made with green chile white sauce (a fancy name for cooked flour and water paste), instead of making them with red chile sauce. When I went on to comment on the seasoning and thickness and the changes I make to an old, established favorite, he went for the jugular - "You like to live dangerously, don’t you."

Yes, I certainly live on the edge in all respects.

When I was protesting too much, he did say that it tasted good! the dear man.