THE MIDNIGHT SNACK OF CHAMPIONS

In retrospect, there may have been too much hot sauce. And cholula. And chiles en escabeche. And sambal. But it was good, and I'm probably going to make the same mistake in a few days. In keeping with my long-standing insistence that hot sauce is a vegetable, and therefore must be good for you. Clears out your insides, keeps you healthy and vibrant.

If I were a dog, my coat would be shiny.


On the other hand, if I were a juvenile, I would have taken full advantage of Slurpee Day at seven-11 yesterday, and have a refined sugar hangover of monumental proportions now. Rather than mild interior discomfort.

So I'm miles ahead of the curve here.

It should be a glorious day.


My first exposure to the exciting possibilities of chilies was when I was still in my single digits. Within weeks it was a secret surreptitious addition to all meals, necessary because my mother, when she cooked, cooked military-style. Or Berkeley student boarding house style. Very American.
Very "what the devil is this".

My father occasionally did the cooking, and in my teens I started preparing dinner, because due to my mother's illness she needed more rest.

Most women of her age and era cooked, having grown up with that seed firmly planted in their minds, but, truth be told, their social indoctrination never inspired them with a love of good food. If she had ever seen Julia Child, she would have been both amused and baffled. Cookbooks, until fairly late in the game, lectured on necessity and nutrition, of which there is plenty in meatloaf. As well as convenient casseroles.
It was all sternly uplifting and superior.

Cooking killed bacteria.

Hot sauce and chilies, in that universe, were somehow bad things. Unnecessary, and indulgent in a sinful and possibly depraved way.
Likely to stunt your growth both physically and morally.

Wasp propaganda had pulled a number, and we all paid for it.

I think you'll agree that chilies are, in fact, essential to the proper functioning of society, and vastly improve almost anything. And unlike bacon, they're filled with the building blocks of healthy bodies.


Everywhere between the Sierras and the Cumberland Gap would be a much better place with happier and more tolerant people if they just ate well.
Instead of the cesspools of mean-spirited trailer parkers shooting Meth that they are now.


On the other hand, that keema and rice yesterday could have been a little less assertively flavoured. And blanched veggies dipped in sambal as a side dish might, possibly, have been a bit much. Especially when I finished them off late at night as a midnight snack. Sambal lalap.
I am no longer a teenager.




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