Love in a Coffee Can Stuck in the Closet

I have always enjoyed food. I have a recipe box, beaten up and grimy, tucked away somewhere in the garage, with recipes collected and written out in my second grade handwriting on index cards and lined school paper. My mom is a terrific cook. And perhaps one might say reluctant? No one can do angel biscuits or sopapillas like Mom. That said, Dad was the one who delighted in the kitchen.

Daddy had a rusty old coffee can full of his own scribblings. Little things picked up from ladies at the church potlucks. A faded newspaper clipping of a recipe. List of ingredients and measurements for curing corned beef or bacon. Our family favorite: slop cake! You know the one? Perhaps not? Slop a can of cherry pie filling, a can of crushed pineapple into a rectangle baking pan. Dump a box of dry cake mix on top. Pour a melted stick of butter (let's face it, you know it was margarine) on top and liberally sprinkle cracked pecans on top of everything else. Bake in a hot oven until everything is bubbly and the smell is divine. Try not to burn your mouth when you sneak a spoonful from the corner.

I don't eat sugar anymore. Hardly ever. And my baking is all whole foods, real organic cherries and never a boxed mix in sight. But I can admit that I do feel quite nostalgic when I remember the smell, the tangy sweet taste, the buttery flavored goodness. And can see his handwriting on the little slip of paper stuck in among the old school photos and business cards and what not.

We all got together a few weeks ago to remember Daddy on his birthday. Mom pulled down the coffee can and we spread the contents all over the big wooden table he made with his own hands way back when I was in elementary or early middle school. I laughed at the school pictures. Wow we had some big glasses! Thanks Mom and Dad for the braces! Awkward and painful but now look at my straight teeth!

And all those scraps of paper. Backs of receipts, butcher paper, index cards, lined school paper. All with his handwriting, probably using a pencil he had just sharpened with his pocket knife. It made me cry. Touching my dad's fingerprints all over the years of his little stash, kept up in a corner of the closet, was it to the left? The right?

Daddy was a firefighter with the Oklahoma City Fire Department. Four days on, four days off? I don't know for sure, but I do remember he would be gone for a few days a week and of course those would be the days the rabid skunk would lurk around our farmhouse and Mom would have to woman up and kill it, did she actually cut the head off to send off to be tested for rabies??? I will ask her this afternoon. Or a poisonous snake by the backdoor. I can't forget the time I cut myself rather severely, playing in a forbidden zone, barefoot of course, an old fallen down barn full of broken glass. Blood was spurting from my ankle with every pulse of my heart and she had to gather up me, the toddler and the baby, to drive into town to the ER.

But wait, this is about Daddy! All the time Mom would be milking the goats and hanging the diapers on the clothesline, Daddy would be on call, heading out to fires all over the city. Dangerous, but he loved it. And when not tackling fires, he would be taking over the kitchen, cooking for the crew. He did such a good job his crew frequently asked him to share his recipes with their wives, haha! Dad cooked by taste. And oh how he loved to make people happy by giving them delicious food!

It is a wonder how this peanut farming cotton picking kid from dustbowl Oklahoma grew to love the kitchen so much. Back in the day, early to mid eighties I guess, Mom was spending a lot of time in Lajitas and the Big Bend, out here in West Texas. She would come to paint on location, have art shows, meet fancy people who loved her art work. Most of the time Dad would be back in Central Texas managing the place and their three daughters. Occasionally they would cross the border into Ojinaga, Coahuila, Mexico and go out to eat. Dad would question the cooks in his broken Spanish, coaxing them to share their recipes. From these forays comes my favorite meal my dad would make. In fact, when we reunited after two years of my living in Japan, the very first meal I requested was his Tacos Chihuahua.

Beef, chicken, venison or shrimp, the protein doesn't matter much. Hey! I've made this with tofu, but don't tell Daddy. He would be rolling his eyes in heaven, telling me we have a freezer full of meat, go get some.

Here's how you could make this yourself, if I remember properly.

Thinly slice two or three onions on the bias. He would use yellow ones. Chop up an entire package of bacon. Yep. That was his recipe. Use your biggest cast iron skillet. Gently begin to cook those onions in the bacon. Slice a bunch of garlic cloves and toss them in the pan. When the onions begin to caramelize toss in the chunks of meat. You should have seen my dad debone a chicken. When the meat begins to brown, add several fresh tomatoes cut into pieces about the size of your thumb. And several fresh jalapenos. He would suggest that jalapenos with a pointy end would be very very hot, a blunt end more mild. He would then whisper dramatically that when the tomatoes began to break down, it was important to add a generous glug of soy sauce. How the heck did my dad know about umami??? Try to make this dish without the soy sauce and it is not even near the same, even if delicious. When things are all nice and saucy, and of course after he would taste for salt and pepper, he would finely chop a bunch of fresh cilantro and toss it all in, stems and all, and cook for just a couple minutes more.

We would have this served on rice. Or in hot flour tortillas. Plenty of his special pico de gallo and yes, why not top all that fat off with some sour cream?

I haven't made this dish in awhile. When I do I use a few slices of organic, pastured pork bacon for many servings! Venison is still my favorite go to. Or boneless skinless chicken thighs. I don't eat rice, very few tortillas, but I might have to whip this up this weekend. Makes me teary-eyed thinking about it.

I asked Daddy to make this meal for my fiftieth birthday, yep, several years ago. He couldn't sharpen the knives. He kept forgetting the ingredients and had to ask me over and over if I could help him remember. It was one of the harshest, saddest days ever.

A few doctors had diagnosed him with Parkinson's Disease, but we found a neurologist in Odessa who determined that Daddy had Lewy Bodies Dementia. Similar and yet oh so different.

I took over the cooking and Daddy helped stir. I felt grief spread cold through my body. Little did I know what a hard journey he would have over the next few years. And yet. And yet. We had each other! We had the memories! I had the recipes written in my heart. And on little scraps of paper in a beat up, rusty red coffee can.