When your mouth gets full of fire. . . .

January 10, 2011


Dear quartet of blue haired church ladies with your tantalizing, tasty, demonic case of mincemeat tarts,

YOU HAVE NOT DEFEATED ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another 7 pounds has bit the dust.

Grand total: 35 pounds lost since October.

15 pounds away from my first of many goals: 50 pounds.

My pants are looser. . .even my father noticed Saturday evening when we were at the nursing home.

I am wearing a shirt, at this very moment, that I haven't been able to wear for a couple of years.

I am conquering my demons.

Food will not run my life.

Chicken and almonds are enough.







Stephen and the kids love chicken.

But it would seem that their tolerance is waning. . . .a little.

Twice last week Stephen made dinner.

Stir fry veggies and pork one night.

Hamburgers the next.

I found ground beef in the freezer.

He wanted red meat.

Craved it almost.

Hamburgers were on the menu.

While I sat at the table and ate my lean ground beef pattie, sans bun, ketchup, mustard, relish, pickles and cheese, I dawned on me what was going on.

Me: Are you getting tired of chicken?

SJP: Just a little.

Me: Why didn't you say something?

SJP: Because I didn't want you to think I wasn't being supportive.

With the remaining ground beef, I made chili.

Simmering in the crock pot as we speak.

Brimming with veggies, a little ground beef, and lots of beans.

I am perfectly willing to compromise.

Just because I can live on chicken, almonds and sweet potatoes, doesn't mean everyone else can.

Who made the beef stew with dumplings yesterday while singing her heart out?






Making chili in this house is a bit like a game of Russian Roulette.

You never know what will happen.

I like chili.

The kids, as far as I know, like chili.

Stephen thinks chili is the next holiest thing to cheese.

The two together and he thinks he's in heaven.

For the most part, I do the cooking here, and with good reason.

Chocolate chips in my beans.

Linguine and clams in my egg salad.

All very good reasons to ensure Stephen's access to the kitchen and its contents are strictly monitored.

However, all bets are off, all rules out the window, when it comes to chili.

Stephen's desire for heat in his chili renders him virtually unmanageable.

I put all the necessary spices, sauces, veggies needed to ensure the chili has some heat but isn't completely inedible.

Stephen, on the other hand, has been known to question my culinary judgement.

Meaning at every opportunity, he will smuggle his Louisiana hot sauce into the chili.

The chili I started out with, the edible, tasty and somewhat spicy chili morphs into a cauldron of heat hotter than Dante's Inferno and just as inedible.

Except for Stephen, who tucks into his bowl of hell infused heat with such gusto that watching him is almost obscene.

Relishing every bite while he sweats profusely, he repeatedly makes remarks about "how good" the chili is with "just the right amount of heat" while the rest of us who have dared to try the most minuscule of nibbles are busy dousing our heads in buckets of milk in a weak and vain attempt to quell the angry volcanoes building in our insides.

Yesterday, after I finished putting my chili together, I sat down with Stephen at the kitchen table, put both of his hands in mind to center him and made him look me in the eye.

I then threatened him within an inch of his life, promising a long, painful, tortured death if he even considered that taking the bottle of hot sauce from the fridge and adding more acrid, blistering, piquant, spicy zestiness into my chili, thus rendering contaminated and indigestible.

He seems to have understood.

Random taste testing of my chili has revealed no burning, febrile additions at the hands of the heat obsessed uncontrollable.

Thus taking the bullets of out the gun, and leaving the game of Russian Roulette with my chili for another day.

Gambling with the food of a woman struggling with weight loss isn't a good thing.

Ever.







Today is the last official day of my break.

Teaching resumes tomorrow morning at 10.00 am.

Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods.

Changes have been made to syllabi's. . students who have taken my classes in the past and have thus advising the incoming crop of the work load awaiting them have provided misinformation.

Muwahhhahahahahahahahaha. . . .

Let.

The.

Games.

Begin.



Title Lyric: Chili Con Carna by The Real Group