Lord of the Zings: Revenge of the chili

There entire world can be divided simply into two sets of people one who can cook and others who can’t; but despite these clear categories there exists a fringe group that is populated by the likes of me. A group that lives on the edges of both the groups, like a seam that holds two distinct bits of fabric together, the food group’s worst nightmare people who love to cook and simply cannot cook.

We can follow a recipe to the T and still come up with an inedible new dish. But yes, even pretenders like us do end up occasionally cooking up a delight and try as we may to replicate it, it just can’t happen. I’ve been on an ‘I Love all things Italian’ mode for a long time now…….so it has been pasta, pasta & pasta the last couple of days. The first two days it came out good by way of sheer accident, feeling rather smug on day 3 I decided I was just a step away from being a cordon bleu master and cooked the same recipe on the third day, as I added the minced garlic to the olive oil I realised my otherwise perfectly fine nose was just not able to get the heady scent of garlic.. then I added the lovely red chili flakes.

Now one commendable thing about them is that they look fiery red, the killer seeds are all intact yet they add such a subtle flavour that if you didn’t train your senses well you’d just miss them. They are the ‘visual deceptors’ and while their taste generally eludes you, nothing elusive about it if you rub a finger that handled it accidentally on the eye suddenly it gets all huffed and puffed about total disrespect to all things essential and stings you with a biting retort.

Once I added these little cheats I added the real stuff. Chili powder, nicely ground with low heat roasting technology to preserve the flavours intact. [Now if that practically sounds like an ad it is because it is :-) however, since I’m not being paid for the ad I’ll refrain from revealing the brand ;-)] Now as I added a quarter teaspoon and let it boil in the tomato gravy I felt something was amiss……I tasted it and sure enough it was…..it seemed as if I’d added the sheep in wolf’s clothing, the Red Chili Flakes instead of the real deal I was quiet surprised, I added another quarter teaspoon and stirred it in, let it blend, tasted it, once again drew a blank, thought maybe my olfactory prowess was unbalanced and sniffed a jar of coffee bean to refresh & restore the delicate balance, once again a taste check…..and drew a blank again.

Thinking to myself that maybe it was a real inferior variety of red chili and some spurious stuff I added a quarter teaspoon out of a fresh pack expecting the dish to catch fire…….stirred it in, checked it out with a quivering hand, expecting a combustion with a prayer on my lips and a finger on the fire engine speed dial I took a taste test and amazingly no heat, at this point I gave up, the heavens had conspired, it was to be a day of dead food.

So I skipped past the chili and got on with another dose of minced garlic and sheer delight, I doubt any true blue Italian would’ve dumped as much as I did but well..... I don’t claim to originate from Italy so well, no big deal. Once I thought the sauce had achieved the right texture, in went the spaghetti and couple of nice twists of the arm and the master piece was ready.

With a preen worthy of Gaston (OK no stereo-typing, a French chef) I transferred to the food communing table, and settled for a lovely Italian spiced spaghetti sans heat. I took in a forkful, and the mild-manner pasta chugged down my system gently. Suddenly, I heard the shout "fire!"……sure enough it was a real cry for help. Mom was like, “what the hell were you thinking adding so much chili.” I told her I couldn’t taste it at all. She swayed her head as if she couldn’t really be hearing something so unbelievable!

The next thing she did was douse the tomato Ketchup on it and carried on; the amount of Ketchup was enough to drown a whole shipment of pasta….. I took a bite of her plate and followed it up with a bite from my own and the only difference I could discern was, one was a 'tomato-saucy' sweet spaghetti and the other a regular gravy mild enough to satisfy the most blandest of palate. Shaking my head in non-comprehension I finished my nice large plate of dinner while rest of the table was calling on Heinz Ketchup emergency 101 hotline services.

Of course just this by itself would’ve never merited a blog entry; it was what happened next that drove to this post. A couple of hours later at the earliest of hours of morning while I was working on the comp. a sudden explosion of heat rocked my core. Suddenly my stomach contracted and writhed as if set on fire. And I realised that in all name calling I had wronged the red chili flake, it wasn’t a pretender as much as the powder. Like some delayed reaction poison designed to kill much after the fact, the powder had released its potency once in the safe hub of my stomach from where there was no possibility on me hurling it out.

As the fire raced out and snaked across my stomach the core kept boiling over as if it had some sudden undiscovered solar cooker hidden just beneath it, and waves of heat boiled over from it. In all these years, I realised I’d never really acquired a cast iron stomach or if I did the iron just melted through the charlatan powder’s sneak assault……