Fortunately for me, I have this AMAZING blender. A Vita-Mix. The kind Charlie Trotter tells you might be worth taking out a second mortgage on your house to own. Unfortunately, I broke it last weekend in an incident that now takes a top slot in my very extensive Annals of Stupidity. Here's the story:
So the Packers made the playoffs, an event that registers in importance for me somewhere slightly above the latest election results from Liechtenstein. It matters to me insofar as it provides an opportunity to produce Man Food for an appreciative audience, and Man Food means chili. My chili recipe involves the following: brisket; beer; fresh cilantro; butternut squash; ancho chiles. It does not involve: beans. This is apparently a Texas thing, although my chile-expert bona fides are flimsy. However, I find it tasty. I set out to make my chili last Sunday morning, a Day That Will Live in Appliance-Destruction Infamy. Soaked the dried chilis, chucked them into the blender along with garlic and lots of other spices that are so super-secret that they can only be found listed in the October, 2008 issue of Bon Appetit. Affixed the mixing pestle gizmo to the lid of the Vita-Mix and turned it on.
What happened next is nearly too idiotic to recount. The clear plastic plug that goes in the Vita-Mix lid when the pestle gizmo is not in use was IN THE BLENDER underneath all of the aforementioned tasty chili ingredients, which in my haste I had thrown in without looking first. Because of my persistent, bull-headed pestling, I managed to do real and permanent damage to the blender, which I could replace for the cost of a plane ticket to Liechtenstein.
Unfortunately, later that day, I discovered that my sister and her family were planning to come over to my house for dinner due to a miscommunication worthy of "Three's Company." Fortunately, I had TONS of chili. Unfortunately, my chili is more spicy than the average under-ten-year-old's palate will take. Fortunately, I had justenoughtime to make some corn bread to bulk out the meal with starch and sugar. Unfortunately, only TWO of the ten guests at my impromptu football gathering would eat my chili. Fortunately, lots of leftovers were available for moi. And MOST fortunately of all, my friend Sarah L. recommended a local appliance-repair business that currently has possession of the hobbled Vita-Mix and is bringing it back to life for, I hope, the price of a bus ticket to Chicago. I am now looking for a new chili recipe.
And, unfortunately, the Packers lost.
5 comments:
It is worth typing ciersoid (imagine that word in electric slide font) to ask you what the other eight ate. I've made entire meals for myself of cornbread, but I assume they did not.
have you had a chance to visit kiefers yet?
I have been to Kiefers! They currently have my blender and think it can probably be fixed once a replacement part is ordered. The guy took one look at it and said, "Oh, it just needs a new [widget]." (some blender part I'm unfamiliar with) So my fingers are crossed on this one. It looks like you saved the day.
...and the other eight ate (1) cornbread, and (2) some kale soup my sister made out of past-the-sell-by-date greens she got in a plastic bag from Whole Foods to feed her chickens (who refuse to eat the kale). Rather than my spicy brisket and squash chili. Rats.
Personally it would have been the chili for me. However, there is no accounting for some people's taste. A couple of weeks ago I made what I thought was a very tasty breakfast with fried potatoes, onion, a jalpeno, eggs and cheese. I decided not to bother taking the seeds out of the pepper. I liked the results; my husband said, "I don't think I can eat this." And he didn't. I took the leftovers to my granddaughter who sampled the dish and vowed that it was excellent.
I hope your VitaMix is feeling better. I just got a Blendtec and am so impressed with it.
Post a Comment