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"The Gypsy woman told my mother, before I was born,
you got a boy-child comin'
 he's goin'  to be a son of a gun"

(Muddy Waters)

In our kitchen we have converted a large closet into  a pantry and I "own" a half shelf which I call the Cajun Napalm Section. This name came about after my first visit to Avery Island, Louisiana. Of course since then I have acquired a taste for the finer ingredients in life's main meals, such as Capiscums. This came about after a bout with some chile verde in Santa Fe at Gardenia's Restaurant and at the Pepper Pot Restaurant in Hatch, New Mexico. I should have renamed my shelf to something more appropriate, such as Southwest HOT, or Scoville Square (Scoville is the heat barometer for peppers), but Louisiana has a special place in my book of travels and cultures, so Cajun Napalm stays.

My culinary skills date back to my youth when my parents were not home and I could experiment in the kitchen. At the age of six I could make one P.B. & J. which would have rocked the world of the then modern trend of pre-adolescent cooks.

As I grew older and drew the best from my wordly travels, mostly on destroyers in the Navy, it became apparent that I would never have my own television show. I was tossed into the melting pot along with  the rest of the un-sponsored, un-heralded folks who never got the chance to say "BAM" in front of the cameras.

Well, as my culinary tastes and talents rose slowly over the horizon like a sunrise on a Sunday morning, I finally inherited the job of chef in our home. This only because I was unemployed and the rest of the people here were employed. This gave me, so I thought, kitchen rights...and did I ever put them into motion!

I will not blame the pequins, it is not their fault even though they were part of the action. It was my fault that I was voted out of the kitchen on that certain Tuesday in January, and voted out by my own flesh and blood. Can you believe this?

It was a simple meal, meat loaf, mashed potatoes and peas.

In the meat loaf I added some garlic, a sprinkling of my homemade chili powder and cumin, coarse ground meat and the rest was pretty standard meat loaf. In the spuds I added some garlic, just to add a tickle of taste of Gilroy, California. The peas? Just for the color. They are a pain in the butt to eat anyway, but they make a neat plate. Now I had this tomato sauce that I thought I'd pour over the loaf and potatoes. It was a stock sauce. Stock as in not having been modified, like in Nascar. I rummaged through my part of the pantry and found a bag of pequins (chilepequins is the correct word I believe). These I crushed up between my fingers and added to the sauce.........I was proud of meat loaf dinner on this cold January evening.

As seen by the person with whom I sleep....................

"He is OUT. That's it, no mo' will I wake up with heartburn because this Tex-Mex wannabe thinks that 'hot' is a must for everything. I will quit my job so as to keep my kitchen for me, the rightful owner, I will sell my soul to the devil before I indulge in one more of his culinary miscarriages. I have spoken!"

As seen by my daughter................
Applause............

As seen by me........
Some people have no class.  My art of cooking is done with love, accompanied by mood music, a beer now and then and also on my wall hangs a diploma stating that I have completed a course in dishwashing, cleaning up, stove and counter maintenance. I also hold the family record for consecutive fly kills by snapping a humid dish towel and nailing them as they stand.

May I terminate this grievance, tearfully I must say, by declaring that my Cajun Napalm has now been relegated to my personal memories and museum artifacts section in the cellar.

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