My Sous Chef

The day he made chicken with cloves and sticky overcooked top ramen for a side dish was the day that Larry was banned from my kitchen FOREVER!!! Very soon after that day 19 years ago, Cameron then 2 yrs old, became my sous chef. Once in a while Larry would poke his head in the kitchen and ask to help. I gave him menial tasks like opening cans and chopping things. On occasion, he would express how he could help me if i'd like, and knowing he was only offering because he wanted to be helpful, i replied the usual response, "Remember cloves and chicken!" and he would back out slowly, happy to be off the hook. Tonight I was making my famous chicken enchiladas for a friend who is ill and her family. I was so happy to make them because she requested them which boosted my food ego:) So, this is the story of tonight's cooking event. One that will surely replace the chicken and cloves going down into history in the Peterson, Martin-Peterson, Martin, Macedonio, Cervantes house.

Jessica doesn't have a car until 4 pm to purchase the ingredients for the meal and because she is a master procrastinator, she is left hurrying with Cameron through the market gathering her ingredients for the enchiladas. Chicken, sour cream, cheese, chili, green chiles, cream of chicken soup, tortillas, black beans and corn. She enters the house in a mad dash to prepare the meal in less than 30 min. She toasts the rice and forgets about it, before it can burn, Cameron tosses it and reminds her, she adds the spices and water and moves on forgetting to turn down the flame. As she de-bones the rotisserie chicken she asks sous chef Cameron to make the refried bean dish then realizes the flame for the rice needed to be turned down and she requests the help from Larry who is opening cans for her, to put the flame at 9 o'clock, he sets the flame, then stirs the rice...no!!! Cameron and Jessica both react. "Please dont stir the rice, it's going to be sticky now!" no big deal, it's just the rice. Jessica asks Larry to drain and rinse the black beans and corn and put them in the bowl she hands him. He does it. Then she asks him to put the soup, sour cream and chili in a bowl, as she looks over her shoulder she gasps, "wait!" her heart is pounding, she almost told him to put it in with the corn and chili which goes in with the chicken and green chilis for the filling. The other stuff is the sauce. " Oh man, i'm so glad i didnt have him do that, i think i would have cried! That would just be the worse thing ever! pfew!" she gives him a different bowl for the sauce stuff. The chicken is de-boned and everything is ready to be put together! Jessica turns around to get the 2 bowls and "FUCK!" is all that came out of her mouth! There it was...1 bowl with all of the ingredients...he was standing there mixing it all up, his smile turned to an expression of, "What did I just do" there was no going back, the enchiladas were going to be soupy creamy enchiladas. With no time to re-do, they were put together, topped with a verde enchilada sauce and cheese, put in the oven and baked, but not before Jessica put one on a plate for Larry. As he ate the enchilada he soon realized his tortilla was swimming in sauce and he didnt want to finish it. Then he asked "Did you forget to put the chicken in here?" No, it's in there....she sends him on his way to her friends house accompanied by a note that read, "Dear sweet friend, please enjoy these soupy creamy enchiladas. They were made with love." or something like that;O)