Slow Cooker Sunday

I got my first Crockpot when Steve Smith and I were teamed as the Advance Clowns for the Ringling Blue Unit back in 1974. We drove a motor home supplied by the show -- a decrepit affair that required Smith to frequently crawl underneath the chassis to hot wire the ignition to get us rolling. He did the driving and I did the cooking. That first slow cooker came with a book of recipes, which I followed religiously each day before we left for our funny business. Smith hated onions. He told me to never put onions in my stews, soups, roasts, or ragouts. I promised him I would refrain. When his back was turned I rapidly chopped up an onion and tossed it in, followed by a goodly helping of garlic. He never caught on -- or if he did, he decided that in the interests of teamwork he would let it slide. Most of the time he liked to lay back on his bed in the back of the motor home, eating Oreos and drinking Coke. He had absolutely no palate -- having grown up in a home where potato chip casserole was served every other day. 

Me and Smith; Dusty & TJ.

We broke up the team of Dusty & TJ in 1975 because I wanted to serve an LDS mission in Thailand. I gave the Crockpot away, and never used one again until ages later, after my divorce, when I went to work for radio station KICD in Spencer, Iowa. I got up at 4 a.m. to gather news nuggets for the 6 a.m. broadcast, and found it handy to have a slow cooker preparing my lunch so I didn't have to go out for a hasty sandwich while putting together the afternoon crop reports and 4-H bulletins. The break room became redolent with chili verde, stewed pork medallions, and cock-a-leekie soup. Staff members wistfully said to me, as we passed in the hall, "Sure smells good in the break room, Tim -- any chance of some leftovers?"

That was all the encouragement I needed. I traded in my four quart model for a ten quart beauty at Menards and never looked back.

I blossomed as a cuisinier improvisateur (improvising chef.) Were beets on sale at the Hy-Vee? Then it was time for an earthy borscht! Chicken breasts at 49 cents a pound? Brunswick stew, coming right up! My chili verde, using fresh tomatillos, mind you, not the canned stuff, became legendary on the FM side of the station, when the afternoon DJ indulged with gusto but no restraint, and had to explain the thunderous background noises during his live commercials for Warner Funeral Homes to his baffled listeners as a semi trailer truck accident on the nearby highway.

I specialized in tinfoil fish dinners; each fillet delicately seasoned with bouquet garni and a thin slice of lemon. But I overreached myself with a flagrant concoction of sauerkraut and kielbasa.

"What the hell is that smell?" the station manager demanded of me, as the tumid fumes wafted through the building. When I sheepishly explained it was just a little behandelm for the staff, he henceforth forbade me the use of the break room for my culinary debauches. I was reduced to eating Walmart sardines (99 cents a tin) with Triscuits and cottage cheese on most days when the news tips piled up on my desk and demanded immediate editing and/or clarification. The rest of the staff went back to their Subway sandwiches without a soupcon of complaint -- they knew what side their bread was buttered on, and it wasn't my side by a country mile.

The years skipped merrily along, gifting me with sturdy bags under my eyes, a thriving waistline, and a paucity of employment (my last job, at age 60, lasted 3 months before I was fired for writing a blog explaining homophones -- which the boss thought meant I was advocating the LGBT agenda.) So I finally decided to take early Social Security and apply for subsidized Senior Citizen Housing. Which I now have. I live in an apartment building with 350 other old geezers, and all they ever talk about in the lobby is either their latest colonoscopy or why their grand kids couldn't get into BYU. 
Sundays are especially dreadful, as they gather in the lobby like starlings in a cornfield -- waiting for the abbreviated LDS Sacrament Meeting to begin. 

A year ago I was contemplating slicing my wrists as a viable alternative to enduring any more banal banter, when it struck me that what these poor old souls needed to get them out of their rut was a zippy brunch. And who better to serve it up than yours truly?

So once again I got me the biggest Crock pot I could find and began offering goulash and vichyssoise one hour prior to Sacrament Meeting, right in the lobby. Free to all. First come, first served. 

Today, being Sunday, I whipped up a mess of sweet and sour Hawaiian Spam chunks over pasta shells. With pickled green beans on the side. It went over like gangbusters. And the conversation was as spicy as the red pepper flakes I generously add to every dish.

A retired couple from Zimbabwe, who were prosperous farmers when the country was known as Rhodesia, got into a furious argument with a retired Marine captain who said Trump was a moron because of the way he treated the immigrant question. An elderly widow gave a vivid and surprisingly lascivious recap of a recent cable movie about Chappaquiddick and Ted Kennedy. And I managed to get off a zinger or two when the talk turned to how rotten our kids are and I said "My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been one." 
(Well, actually Groucho Marx said that -- but these old fogies can't tell Groucho from a hole in the ground.) 

All in all, it was a splendid convocation of verbal sparring; several ladies decided to become lifelong enemies and things got so boisterous that I overheard a 90-year old man mutter to himself "I'll never be able to take a nap after this." We all went into Sacrament Meeting in the Community Room full of pep and vinegar. Now that's the way old folks should be -- rip-snortin' and ready for a rumble! Next Sunday I think I'll try stuffed ghost peppers . . .