One of my favorite people growing up was a friend's mom.

She was one of those people that sounded a lot like a simpleton but was in fact such a simpleton she was a genius.

One sunny Saturday she was sitting at our kitchen table with my mother drinking coffee. It was about noontime and I was hungry so I came in and made myself a can of vegetable beef soup and a sandwich. When it was done I took it out on the porch to eat and through the screen door I heard Connie ask my mom how she taught me to cook.

Mom replied that I had sort of just figured it out on my own because I like to eat. Connie laughed. She told mom she was lucky. Mom also mentioned that one of my kid sisters loved it when I cooked breakfast on Saturday mornings and described my  breakfast hashes and sandwiches I made out of leftovers. She said you had to use a spoon to eat some of the sandwiches which I suppose is true even though everything was generally stuck together with eggs.

She explained that she decided to teach all of her three sons to cook and my mother asked how she did it.

She said she would assign one son to make something with what she had left out for diner alongside a cook book and he was responsible for the evening meal.

Mom asked her how that managed to work out.

Connie replied that with three sons cooking two meals a week six days a week it took them all about two weeks to become passable cooks. She also chuckled that she took the stove over on Sundays to make sure that everyone got at least one decent evening meal a week.

Mom asked her if she helped out and she said she most certainly did not. She simply let brotherly peer pressure and nature run its course.

Connie laughed that the first couple of meals the boys cooked were terrible but after each son had cooked about four meals they all managed to become passable cooks and two of the three became pretty good cooks to the point where she'd grab one of them to help her cook if they did any entertaining.

Mom thought that was a pretty good idea and drafted me a few weeks later to help her make snacks because they were having people over to play Bridge.

I knew the men that were coming over and mom left me busy making the snacks and hors d'oeuvres. She had to go and get a few things and I knew I had time. I whipped up a pretty good pot of chili when she was gone.

I knew the men that came with their wives and they were all guys I liked. I hid the chili in the basement refrigerator and as usual, the women had pregame drinks in the living room while the guys assembled in the kitchen. Just before they arrived I carefully reheated the chili on the camp stove in the basement and when they were assembled in the kitchen I came up carrying the pot and grabbed bowls and started dishing up.

There were no refusals and while the women yakked in the living room the guys had chili and beer in the kitchen. The guys loved it.

One of the guys asked me my recipe and I remember telling him there was no real recipe, you simply made chili.

My father laughed when I said that and shook his head. He told him that I was right. You just scouted around and grabbed stuff and made chili. He commented that I had not used hamburger but had simply grabbed a small roast and cut it up into pieces about half the size of my little toe.

The following morning dad grabbed me and told me that if I hadn't made such a good pot of chili he'd have golfed me and we sneaked off to the supermarket to replace the roast I had hacked up to keep me out of hot water with Mom when she found the roast missing.

Dad was pretty slick. He fished the roast wrapper out of the trash and we went in scouted around until we found one that pretty much matched and mom was never the wiser...or so I thought.

Several months later she handed me another roast and told me to not only help her with the hors d'oeuvres but also to whip up a bigger pot of chili than the last time.




To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY