Using a whole bottle of Tobasco or, Spice Packet People

Part 2

We are not just spice packet people.  There are a few family recipes that have been handed down.  The ‘Nuts and Bolts’ I made the other day is one of them.  The photo-copied card I have in my recipe book reads “from the kitchen of Grandma Palmer”, that would my my mom’s grandma, my great-grandma.  To call it party mix would be disrespectful.  The smell of it baking means Christmas, especially since my mom would make two or three batches between Thanksgiving and New Years Eve.

The first Christmas my husband and I were married (the same year I learned about my mom’s chili), I eagerly bought all the ingredients for Nuts and Bolts.  I carefully followed the recipe, making sure my measurements were exact.  I remember there was no temperature for the oven written on the card.  I probably called my mom to ask, but she must have been away from home and just guessed.  The wonderful Nuts and Bolts Christmas smell did not fill our apartment.  It burned.  

Perhaps the oven was too hot.  Perhaps I hadn’t made enough sauce for the amount of pretzels, rice chex and nuts.  Whatever the reason the only person who ate it was my older sister who favors the burned pieces of popcorn.  Even the small amount of non-burned Nuts and Bolts was bland. I tried to like it.  I tried to get my husband to like it.  We ended up throwing most of it away.  

I related to my mom my failed attempt at the family tradition.  When I mentioned how bland it was and how hers always tasted better she replied with: ‘Oh, I don’t follow the recipe.  I add way more Tobasco and Worcestershire sauce than it calls for.’

Last years attempt was passable, though still not as good as mom’s.  So this year I was excited.  No measuring.  Dashes of this, handfuls of that and a whole bottle of Tobasco.  That’s what she said right?  I did pause half way through the bottle.  But I remember, she said ‘a lot’ of Tobasco.  So in it went.  Two and a half hours later I tasted my latest attempt.  Yum.  Spicy, but delicious.

Well.  Yesterday my sisters and our daughters baked cookies with my mom (thoughts of generational cookbooks return).  I mentioned that I had finally made good Nuts and Bolts and that they were spicy from the whole bottle of Tobasco.

Whole bottle?? My mom looked at me in disbelief.

Yes, I thought you said you use the whole bottle?

Oh, I only use about two tablespoons.

Sigh...

Using a whole bottle of Tobasco or, Spice Packet People

Part 1

A few months after I got married I felt intrepid enough to try my hand at making chili.  Cooking is not my specialty.  I can bake a delicious (some even say famous) chocolate chip cookie, but cooking always frazzled me, too many variables.  I lived at home during college and on the nights my mom didn’t cook my staple was Annie’s Mac and Cheese.  Some times I would saute onions and peppers, maybe heat up some leftover meat, to make the mac and cheese into more of a meal but that was the extent of my cooking abilities.  My dad was so worried about the comfort of my future husband he took it upon himself to teach me to cook.  Let’s just say it only happened once and it didn’t end well.  I was given boxes of Annie’s Mac at my bridal shower.  By more than one person.  Faith in my cooking abilities was low.

But I wanted to try chili.  Not just any chili, my mom’s chili.  The only chili I liked (or so I thought).  So I asked her for her recipe.  My first clue should have been the fact that I didn’t already have it.  I had photo-copied cards from her recipe box, at least all the ones I liked, before I moved out.  

My mom looked puzzled, my recipe?  

Yea, your chili is the only kind I really like.  

Oh, I just use the spice packet.

Crash. 

I timidly picked it up the next time I was at the grocery store.  McCormick.  Chili.  Hot.  There it was, what I thought was a ‘family recipe’, on the back of a spice packet.  Ready in 30 minutes.  Dreams of cookbooks filled with recipes passed down mother to daughter that would rival Martha Stewart and Paula Deen evaporated.  We were spice packet people.