Green Chile Stew and Thunderstorms
Diary of a glorious day off (Writing or blabbering?)
For me, Tuesday is a day off from work. It’s part of my weekend. I work on what other people consider to be a weekend and my weekend is on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Last night before heading to Dreamland I proclaimed to the Universe that I intended to have a truly wonderful day off today — just in case the Universe might consider helping out.
Normally I spend the bulk of my Tuesdays writing. I would spend the bulk of every day writing if I didn’t have a job. But alas, the roof over my head is not free. So I try to squeeze as much writing into my Tuesdays and Wednesdays as I can.
But I decided that on this particular Tuesday, which I intended to be special, that I would NOT write. Instead I would blabber. I would take a one-day vacation from serious writing and I would just blabber. Blabbering is a lot like talking to a friend. Precious little time is spent thinking about writing or what you are saying. You just spew out whatever comes out.
It was not until one o’clock in the afternoon that I finally sat down at my desk to begin blabbering. I got a late start. Anyway, that is when I got the idea to write a diary of my day off. A diary encompassing only one day? A diary of one day’s worth of blabbering…
I awoke at six A. M. this morning to lightning, thunder and quasi-torrential rain. I immediately thanked the Universe. Here on the Great Plains of Turtle Island thunderstorms usually happen in the afternoon and evening, not at six in the morning. What an exciting way to wake up! I immediately thanked the universe.
Actually, it has been raining on and off for the last two and a half days. Instead of daytime temperatures up near 100 degrees (Fahrenheit) our temperatures have been in the seventies. I am loving it! If you can’t afford to go on a vacation maybe Ma Nature can bring the vacation to you.
The air conditioner has been off all day so far and the windows are all wide open. My apartment smells like a cool Canadian rain forest.
I had an appointment for 9 o’clock this morning and luckily I did not have to go anywhere to make the appointment. The appointment was in my own home. The appointment came to me.
A few weeks ago I got a flyer/coupon in the mail from the local cable company. They wanted me to sign up with them for cable TV or phone service or high-speed internet access or preferably all three. Well, I don’t need phone service and I don’t really care for TV (who the hell has time to watch TV?) so I zeroed in on what they said about their internet access. I’m paraphrasing but it said something like, “Are you sick of the slow internet speed you’re getting from the phone company? Switch to us and you’ll be amazed at the faster speed we can provide.”
It’s like they were reading my mind! With the coupon expiring later this week, last week I called them up and made an appointment for today to switch my internet access provider. I’ve been getting my internet from the phone company for the last five and a half years and it has been getting slower and slower every year. It’s not the phone company’s fault. It’s the fault of the very, very old telephone wires in my apartment building. I had called them a few months ago and they said that for 99 bucks they would come out and fix that. I told them no thank you.
The cable company coupon said that they would waive the $50 installation fee plus give me a $50 credit on my first month’s bill. So I had the option of paying the phone company a hundred bucks to improve my internet access speed or I could SAVE a hundred bucks by switching to cable.
DUH!
The beefy tattooed cable guy showed up at 8:59. I took that as a good sign. In less than twelve minutes he had me totally hooked up to the internet through cable. And then I tried it out. Guess what? Even though the Mbps speed was exactly the same as what the phone company provided, my internet speed was at least twice as fast! I was, and am, so fucking happy!
Once again, I thanked the Universe. (I also mentally thanked the cable company.)
Just before noon the rain stopped and the sun came out for eight minutes. I put on some respectable clothes and tennis shoes and went outside to run some errands. First, I went to the convenience store to buy a lottery ticket. Hey, there is no better time to buy a lotto ticket than on a special quasi-vacation day off, right? Then I went next door to the quasi-Mexican fast-food joint. Every Tuesday at this restaurant is Taco Tuesday and they offer tacos for just 90 cents plus tax. So for less than a buck I had a little lunch. (I didn’t want to spoil my appetite for what was coming later on this special day.)
And then on my way back home I stopped off at the liquor store.
I have often written about what a green chile aficionado I am. I consider the New Mexico green chile to be the most ultimate vegetable grown on this lovely planet (despite the fact that this chile pepper was not created by Mother Nature, the Universe or God but rather through the ancient practice of plant hybridization — as opposed to genetic engineering — by the good folks at the New Mexico Institute of Agriculture). It is, bar none, my very favorite food.
Even though I live far, far away from the enchanted Rio Grande Valley where the very best green chiles in the entire world are grown, I am extremely lucky because there is a particular vegetable monger here in my town who travels to New Mexico once each year at green chile harvest time and buys a van-load of them then brings them back and roasts them and sells them.
I buy as much as I can afford then bring them home, clean them and put them in plastic baggies and throw them in the freezer. This happens every September and whatever I buy and put away has to last me until the following September. What I freeze rarely lasts me that long. By February I usually only have one bag left and I save that for my birthday in April.
This year, however, it is now the end of May and I still have two little baggies of green chile left in my freezer. I bought a little more last September than I normally do plus I have been practicing the art of delayed gratification. Yesterday, I made the well-thought-out decision to take one of those two baggies down from the freezer and put it into the fridge to start thawing out. At this time of year I will only do that for a very, very special occasion. I finally decided that this special quasi-vacation Tuesday qualified.
Cooking is one of my strongest passions. It is hard to imagine eating something that I did not personally cook — except maybe on Taco Tuesday. I am guessing that approximately 98.214 percent of all the food I eat I prepare and cook myself. It is truly a wonder that I don’t weigh 300 pounds. I am a pretty good cook. But I am not overweight. Sure I’ll gain 4 or 5 pounds over the course of winter but that is always lost by June. It’s like my belly pokes out just a tiny bit in winter and then gets sucked back in summer. Overall, my height and weight are in sync and I fit into my clothes all year.
One of my favorite things to cook is beef stew. I like to cook a big ole pot that provides two or three meals spread out over two or three days. (It only improves in flavor with time.) I make it more in winter than in summer. It is one of those day-long cooking projects than can seriously warm up a kitchen.
My beef stew is a pretty standard beef stew with one major difference. The one ingredient that I add to my beef stew that no cookbook I’ve ever read calls for is New Mexico green chile. It’s like turning ordinary rocks into gold. It’s like turning beef stew into MAGIC beef stew. With New Mexico green chile added to it, ordinary beef stew turns into a magical elixir that changes the entire Universe. It is the kind of stew the Universe would make if you could get the Universe to come to your kitchen and cook for you.
Delaying my green chile gratification over the course of winter and spring, I often substitute jalapenos in my beef stew for the green chile. It’s pretty damn good but it’s just not quite as perfect. I love jalapenos and can’t imagine a life without them but they simply are not the ultimate chile pepper. They have the bite, the hotness and flavor and will zest up any food but they just don’t have the ultimate divine mojo that New Mexico green chiles have.
Okay, it is after 3 in the afternoon and it is time to put my blabbering on hold for a little while. The beef stew meat is marinating (sorry but I won’t give my secret recipe for that) and the green chile is probably thawed out by now. It just started raining again and it is time to go to the kitchen and get the green chile beef stew going. It needs to cook and simmer for quite a while before it reaches optimum flavor. It is time to go to the kitchen, get out the cutting board and start chopping.
I think it might also be time for a drink. I’ll be back…
I was chopping tomatoes when suddenly a bolt of lightning struck very, very close to my apartment building. I’m guessing somewhere in a two-block radius. The lights flickered and the building shook. I almost jumped out of my skin. My first impulse was to wipe off my hands and run into my office to check my laptop. I smiled as I realized that I was still connected to the internet. Once again I thanked the universe as well as the cable company. But I silently said to the universe, “Seriously?”
Of course one does not chop tomatoes. One slices them and then slices them again in order to get them into the little chunks appropriate for a green chile beef stew. But I did a lot of other chopping.
Most of the work is now all done. I just have to let the stew simmer and periodically stir it and taste it. That is one of the best things I like about cooking up a pot of green chile beef stew. It’s taking a test sip every twenty minutes or so. I can’t imagine eating anyone else’s beef stew. I would not have gotten to taste test it for a few hours.
My apartment, despite the ongoing thunderstorms, no longer smells like a Canadian rainforest. It now smells like beef stew. Ah, what an intoxicating aroma! I actually opened up the front door to my apartment for a few minutes to allow the smell of stewing stew to escape into the hallway so that my neighbors could smell it as they come home from work. Yeah, I know that’s weird but I actually did that. Wouldn’t you want to come home to a smell like that? Wouldn’t you want to tease your neighbors?
The rain has stopped and I closed my windows and turned on the air conditioning. I have several thermometers located throughout my apartment and the apartment temperature had reached 72 degrees (Fahrenheit). That is the upper most ceiling of what I consider to be room temperature. Optimum room temperature is 68 degrees but I can handle 72. Anything above that, though, and I start sweating like a luau pig. The official government appointed weather prognosticators are saying that the clouds and rain will leave tonight and that tomorrow it will get up into the upper nineties (Fahrenheit) and that the day after it will get up over 100.
Goddam Fahrenheit! If we were on the Celsius system it would seem a lot cooler.
Okay, it is around 6 P. M. The stew is stewing as only stew can. The apartment smells utterly divine. Outside, the sun is desperately trying to break through the clouds. It has been an absolutely glorious special Tuesday so far. I am so delightfully grateful.
Soon I will have my New Mexico green chile beef stew for dinner. But what about afterwards? How will I continue the specialness of this glorious day?
Yesterday I rented a movie from our local movie rental store. Yes, the little podunk town in which I live still has a movie rental store. It may very well be the last movie rental store in existence. But I support it wholeheartedly. Why pay Jeff Bezos close to a hundred bucks a month for unlimited movies when I would have to watch one hell of a lot of movies to make that worthwhile? Who the hell has time to watch that many movies? I manage to squeeze in five or six movies a month and the cost at the local movie rental store for that is only a tiny fraction of what I would have to pay for “unlimited” movies from Amazon. Seriously, it’s a lot cheaper.
And besides, “Fuck you, Jeff Bezos!”
(He and I don’t get along.)
But I digress. I was thinking about how to spend the rest of my special, quasi-vacation, day off. I’m not sure I want to spend the evening watching a movie. I feel the need to do something different; something out of the ordinary.
I enjoy sitting down to a delightful home-cooked meal while I watch a movie. Who doesn’t? But today it simply has to be different. It has to be somehow different. But what?
I could keep blabbering. After all, that is different than actual writing. But I have passed the 10 minute threshold and I have learned from experience that any post published on Medium that is over 10 minutes simply does not get read. (The numbers prove it.) The more I keep blabbering, the more I am dooming that blabber. Maybe this day of blabbering was a mistake. Perhaps my readers will let me know.
Maybe I should have spent the day actually writing something. But how would that be different from any other day? Seriously, I’m trying to have a fucking vacation day here!
Okay, Universe! The day isn’t over yet. I need something else. Got any ideas?
After two heaping bowls of my special New Mexico green chile beef stew, two shots of tequila and one and a third beers, I decided to go for a little walk. So many health and spiritual pundits proclaim that the best thing to do after a big meal is to go for a walk. I happen to agree with them.
Walking out into the neighborhood I looked up into the sky and realized that there was not one single solitary cloud left in the sky. Just two hours earlier we were in the middle of a lightning-smacking thunderstorm.
Okay Universe. I get it. Things change. Even during the course of just one day things can change profoundly.
The sidewalks and streets were completely dry. Dang, when I hand-wash an article of clothing and hang it in the bathroom to dry it takes fucking forever!
But the good news is that it was still relatively cool. (Depending on which relative you ask.) The birds were having a whoopjamboree and the rabbits were out en masse. There was not even the slightest breeze and the trees were standing perfectly still. The air was unbelievably clean and fresh. (If only I could get my laundry to come out that way.)
I so thoroughly enjoyed my walk through the neighborhood. It was truly life-affirming and invigorating. But near the end of the walk I stopped and looked up into the clear sky. I thanked the Universe for such a wonderful day.
But then I added, “Okay Universe, this has been a fantastic day but it ain’t over yet. What else can you show me?”
I swear I heard the Universe scoff at me. Have you ever heard that? It’s a very subtle sound but it is an unmistaken sound. It was like the Universe was saying, “Haven’t you gotten enough already today?”
Maybe I had asked too much. Sure, it was only a one-day quasi-vacation day off, but I wanted a lot from it. And I had gotten a lot from it.
But it was only a little past 7 in the evening. There was still plenty of day left.
So I resigned myself to just being happy for a glorious day. Seriously, this is the best day off I’ve had since that one day in April.
And then, just a block away from home I was walking down the sidewalk when a toad hopped across the sidewalk in front of me. I had to stop to keep from stepping on it.
In this little backwater redneck town in which I live there is an annual swarm of toads that utterly inundates the town every July and August. Seriously, there are tens or even hundreds of thousands of toads that appear everywhere. All the city streets are covered with toad roadkill. One must be careful walking because they are everywhere like cockroaches.
But this toad that crossed my path today was the very first toad I have seen so far this year. And it is only the end of May! It made me so happy!
After stopping to let the toad cross in front of me, I looked back up into the cloudless sky and proclaimed to the Universe, “Okay, I get it. Thanks again!”
Summer is obviously here.
I got home and had another bite or two of my special secret-recipe New Mexico green chile beef stew before putting it into the fridge for delightful leftovers tomorrow. It truly has been a very special quasi-vacation day off for me today.
I then had another shot of tequila as I wondered what the rest of the evening held in store for me.
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