Guys often watch action movies
and place themselves in the lead character of the flick. The shoot-them-up scenes, chock full of
gratuitous violence and mayhem, are a true escape for the average Joe who needs
this respite from the driveway shoveling snow.
Speedy car chases and brawls only add to the intrigue, transforming the
male brain, totally.
Women do the same thing with
those frilly/girly movies – the ones where a comely lassie visits a foreign
country immediately after a bad breakup.
While on holiday, she stumbles across the most handsome fellow on the
planet. A romantic whirlwind continues
until the time of her sad departure.
Happily the separation is derailed and she spends the remainder of her
life in Latvia
My sainted wife often watches
cooking shows to see what we are not having for dinner tonight. Occasionally I, too, will join her when she
espies professional chefs conjuring up special meals made from ingredients only
found in Latvia
Sometimes we don’t have that
unique ingredient in the pantry; likewise we can’t locate gecko tails in the
supermarket. It is at this point we wing
it.
It may be my imagination, but our
homemade replica is probably lacking in flavor because of the void created by
the lack of gecko tails, or whatever that secret, special component is. Alas.
Then there are those times when
we feel as though we have the same cranial matter as Gordon Ramsey, Bobby Flay,
and Anne Burrell. So we try. Pretend is actually a better word to describe
our often failed efforts - just as we did a few weeks ago.
We found a beautiful prime rib
roast on sale and quickly snatched it up.
We’ve made rib roasts before, and most all turned out beautifully. But for some reason we decided to defer to
the professionals.
A thorough search of a
food-oriented website (no, I’m not going to tell you it was the Food Network,) brought
to a number of mouth-watering recipes for prime rib roasts.
We selected one from Anne
Burrell. Following it to the letter,
although cooking time seemed a bit long, we wound up with a heap of ashes that
closely resembled a primitive tribe’s sacrifice to the gods.
We both gnawed through a modest
portion until we got cramps in our jaws from chewing. Disappointing is not the word I used to
describe this fiasco. But I digress.
Washing this train wreck down
with an appropriate wine didn’t improve this epic failure one bit.
Still, we found some humor in all
this, only after we exhausted our entire supply of vulgarities directed at that
no name website and Anne Burrell, alike.
We recalled a time a few years
back when we were poor as dirt and a neighbor unexpectedly stopped by at dinner
time.
This is one of those lemons into
lemonade moments.
My sainted wife took out some hot
dogs and pack of crescent rolls – the ones that come in a refrigerated tube.
She wrapped the franks like they
were inside little pastry sleeping bags.
After about a half-hour, we served them on the patio with some cold,
adult beverages.
They were an absolute hit that
are still talked bout today.
Perhaps we don’t have that gifted
chef’s palate, maybe we really needed those magical ingredients to make those
TV meals special, or possibly we were simply trying too hard.
We all loved those hot dogs and
still do. Although I’ll buy gecko tails
if I ever find them in the grocery store outside of Latvia
