HH, The French Chef

HH grilled tonight. We are storing some for tomorrow, so I don't have to cook for another day. The menu included bread fresh-baked in the BreadMan, corn not only on the cob, but in the husk, which HH cooked on the grill, some foil packets of potatoes and onions, hot dogs, pork steaks, and two filet minon that HH brought home from work last Thursday. Never mind that HH does not work in the restaurant business, but in fact works in a factory where huge bands of steel that arrive two at a time on a flatbed semi are made into saw blades. Apparently, they had some shindig at work during which filets were grilled. Also never mind that HH drove these twin filets home on the front seat of his car, and at one point in a phone conversation with me said, "Wait a minute. I had them in the freezer. Let's see if they're still frozen. Nope. They're not frozen." And when he got home after his 40 minute drive, HH said, "I'm grilling these on the weekend. I'll just put them in the fridge." Um...NO! I told him in no uncertain terms that these filets had to go directly into Frig's freezer. HH laid them out on the kitchen counter this morning at 9:00, and was planning on leaving them there until 4:00. When I got back from doing the shopping at 11:30, I demanded that he put them in Frig until grilling time. Sheesh! I need to check and see if HH has taken out some extra life insurance on me. I think he is trying to food-poison me.

The #1 son refused to partake of the grilling, and demanded Save-A-Lot spicy chicken. It only takes 5 minutes in the oven, so I agreed. Except that Save-A-Lot was out of the spicy chicken pieces today, so I shook some Bayou Heat hot sauce all over the regular chicken strips. They sure smelled spicy while cooking, but the boy soaked them again when they came out of the oven. Besides 8 pieces of hot chicken, he also had a hot dog, two HH-thick slices of the almost-homemade bread, a third of my filet, and some of HH's foiled potatoes. I think he's 6' 1" now. Good thing we don't live in a gingerbread house, or we would soon be homeless.

Let's get back to those foiled potatoes. They usually turn out pretty good, with just a dash of butter and a shake of salt and pepper. But unbeknownst to me, HH had tried a new recipe. He said they smelled just like Silver Dollar City. I don't know what he meant by that. I've never smelled potatoes cooking at Silver Dollar City. Before trying one, I asked what he put in them. HH said, "Some spice from the cabinet." I know my cabinet. Unless he was talking about lemon pepper, I don't know what it could have been. The #1 son went to the cabinet. HH said, "That stuff on the bottom left."

Red pepper flakes?
No. That stuff next to it.
Bacon bits?
No. On the other side.
Garlic powder?
No. Look on the shelf above.
Cinnamon?
No. Behind it.
Ice cream sprinkles?
No. Look way back there in the middle.
French Gourmet Seasoning?
Yeah. That's it.

Who knew the French had such spicy tastes? Not me. I tried one bite of potato, and my mouth was on fire. With all the hoopla surrounding the hunt for the spice HH used, I'm not so sure it was something actually edible. All I know is that it left no trace. It just looked like a slice of steamed potato with nothing on it.

But the filet was excellent, as was the corn. And I'm still kickin' and not cookin'.