East Dallas Times

By Bruce Felps

I know my way around the kitchen pretty well. In fact, I’m a fairly decent cook. Not a gourmet, mind you, but a good, solid cook.

Which is pretty amazing, really, because my mom was a lousy cook, and that, in itself was surprising in a tickle off kinda way because all three of her sisters and her mom absolutely ruled a kitchen.

They could make a homemade mayonnaise that would cause fistfights over the day-after Thanksgiving leftover table when precious little of the spreadable nirvana remained.

Wolfgang Puck? Well, half right

Mom, though, just went through the motions. She set a weeknight menu when I was about 5 and stuck to it for the rest of the time I lived at home — ‘til I was about 12.

Fridays were salmon croquette nights. Uggh.

The hockey-puck shaped little balls of blah — c’mon, Pat Verbeek? anyone, anyone? —  were about the consistency of a puck and probably harder. The worst thing is that the Friday menu never varied and, “Mom, we’re not Catholic. Nothing says we gotta eat fish every freakin’ Friday, and even if we did, how about some snapper or flounder or catfish or guppies, something, anything, else?”  

Sundays, of course, were pot roast days, which dad and I called “Boot-leather Days,” but not when she was within earshot. She might have been a lousy cook but she was the queen of passive-aggression, and neither of us wanted any part of that.

Dad’s a smart guy. I’m more monkey see, monkey don’t.

Mondays were hot-dog days … boiled hot dogs … bun and all …

Recipe? We don’t need no stinkin’ recipe

Anyway, I’m kind of an improvisational cook. I’ve never followed a recipe in my life. I just survey the available ingredients, imagine what might work together, and go for it. Kinda like with my approach to life.

Most times it works, other times it turns out like an old Gahan Wilson cartoon, “Nuts,” in which a boy, left to fend for himself to make his dinner, thinks, “Hmm, that’s odd. When I added the grape jelly, it turned orange.”

My technique in the kitchen was diametrically opposed to the X-Factor, who felt morally and mathematically bound to honor each and every recipe. That was fine, because she really turned out to be an excellent cook, but bless her rigid heart, she could not, smart as she is, figure out how to reduce a recipe by fractions to make a serving for four, which would provide ample leftovers, from directions meant to serve 12.

Just one of our little differences.

Fire that sucker up

I’m OK over the stove or in the oven — and that sounds a little weird — but put me outside with a Webber Kettle Grill and I become, nah-nah-nah-NAH-Naaah, “I am Grillman; I will sear you.”

Seriously, I wield some mean charcoal, charcoal, mind you, not gas. A charcoal fire and resulting entrée shows that a man takes his time, he cares about the outcome, he’s not in a rush to get in and get out.

A gas grill, which can be lighted instantly, indicates a need for immediate gratification by way of shortcuts, and what dinner companion is into that?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Clearing the Marie Callenders

I have to admit, though, when I became a bachelor again, I mostly subsisted on frozen dinners. Easy, yes; convenient, check; but satisfying? I am Grillman, remember?

So here lately — mostly because I don’t have a Webber Kettle just now — I’ve kind of split the difference between frozen dinners and real cooking, and I’ve gone to packaged preparations like Zatarain’s. They supply the spices and such and I heat up and mix in the meat, and that is not a euphemism.

Last weekend, though, I kind of screwed up. I bought a package of ground pork — because I am not Jewish, either — and what should have been a dirty rice mix but I grabbed the wrong box and ended up with a red beans and rice mix.

I didn’t want to return to the store to exchange one item when I didn’t need anything else, and I didn’t want the pork to go bad because a pig gone bad is not a pretty sight, and I was too stupid to realize I could just freeze the pork, so, I made pork patties … on the stove … in a frying pan.

Uggh. It was just like mom used to make. Lousy.

Bruce Felps owns and operates East Dallas Times. If he invites you to dinner, well, let’s just say discretion is the better part of valor.