You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Pepper Steak.
Noxious fumes rise from the pan like mustard gas in a world War II fox hole.
I cover my mouth with a slice of Brawny Paper towel and move toward the stove.
The vapor is a viscous stew of pungent pepper.
I extend the tongs slowly, carefully toward the glowing frying pan. I lean back, cautiously aware that pepper shrapnel could explode out of this culinary mess without warning.
Don’t want to lose an eye, I think to myself as I slide the tong under the sizzling quagmire of meat losing its battle with the intense, relentless heat.
As I lift the $24 filet slightly, I see the layer of super heated pepper infusing into the soft, receptive cut of beef. The exterior of the bright pink meat has instantly been charred a dark brown. The underside of the filet is blackened like it’s been dipped in a vat of spent coffee grounds.
I drop the meat back into the red hot pan. Little balls of super heated ground pepper are popping like a hand grenade tossed into a fireworks warehouse.
I feel my eyes watering. There’s pain as I stare at the pan of frying chaos. It’s as if I’m staring at the sun and cannot blink.
I cough stridently. My lungs are filled with a toxic layer of molecurarlized pepper.
Is this normal?, I wonder. Should cooking be this stressful? Should Heat and fire and incendiary molecules of angry vapor assault my senses? Should meat scream? should ordinary house pepper rob years from my life.
I look around the kitchen. There should be a surgeon general’s warning like on a pack of Marlboros? Cooking pepper steak can be dangerous to your health.
I draw a breath through the paper towel covering my lips. I suck in air, diffusing pepper gas. I feel like I’m at a Berkley riot with less broken glass.
POP!
I look at the stove, as another layer of scalding pepper ignites into a noxious discharge.
I feel a twinge of nervousness.
Is this dangerous?
I think back to the 1980’s. There was no internet. Back then, there was only THE ANARCHISTS COOKBOOK. An underground collection of typed pages, Xeroxed, and passed from one madmen to the next.
Chapter 17: Turn ordinary household pepper into a weaponized gas grenade.
Thoughts of anarchy dissipate as the steak screeches audibly. The pan is a jamboree of ferocity. The sear of filet is violent as nuclear hot pepper pushes its way into the soft side of the meat. As this transformation of culinary chemistry commences, a chimney of smoke rises from the steak in a swirling, suffocating tornado.
Black Jack the big Lab cocks his anvil sized head.
He sniffs the air and blinks hard. The 13 year old dog stares at me with a “What the F*** are you doing up there human?,” Kind of look.
I stare back at the big anvil head dog. “What should I do?,” I say my words pushing through Brawny paper towel.
The dog raises a paw and flips me the bird.
Did that just happen or was it a mirage in this pepper smoke vortex cloud?
It’s hard to see. The kitchen is filled pepper smoke. My eyes are crying and by this time, my brain is woozy from pepper stained oxygen.
I listen to the sizzle eminating from the pan. It is ferocious. It is angry and thudrous like a million piranahas feeding on a side of beef.
At this moment, Girlfriend pokes her head in the kitchen.
Her face is full of alarm. Her eyes are wide, her cheeks already flushed from lack of oxygen and a vaporized pepper gas, that has saturated the kitchen and now invaded every part of the house.
“What are you doing?,” she sputters.
“Cooking,” I retort simply.
The answer is so insipid, it’s not worth her time.
It’s like asking the Captain of the Titanic what he’s doing and he replies, “Looking for ice.”
She races by me. This is her domain. She is an excellent cook. She has a pan for this and a bowl for that. She has a spice cabinet so complete, it should be in the Library of Congress.
Suddenly I am in her special place and chaos is ominpresent.
I am a virus in an operating theater, a surgeon wearing a clown mask, juggling burning transplant organs.
I feel dumb as I stand there burning her house down with pepper fire, holding a pair of greasy tongs and breathing through a rapidly deteriorating brawny paper towel.
I remain silent. I am a culinary buffoon. I look at myself and it is comical.
I’m standing before a volcano of insanity, the kitchen filled with a firefighter’s worst nightmare, my face covered with paper towel. I begin to laugh.
I am laughing alone. Girlfriend is in distress. She puts her hand to her mouth. Her eyes are red and she is coughing.
It’s not a quiet excuse me I’m at the opera and don’t want to disturb anyone cough. It’s a strident, full diaprham explosion of lungs screaming for oxygen cough.
“What are you doing?,” she gasps jerking open the kitchen door.
I watch as a thick vapor of pepper gas is sucked into the backyard.
“I’m searing the pepper into the filet,” I respond. I learned how to do this a few years ago.”
She looks at me skeptically, the way a downtown office worker looks at the homeless man holding the sign: Hungry Veteran.
I can tell she wants to admonish me for creating an anarchist laboratory on her stove top. If the air wasn’t filled with radiation and possible death, I know she would tell me this is wrong. She would tell me cooking should not be hazardous to your health. I would have to stare at her like a small child and take my medicine. Obviously she is right.
Thankfully, she cannot breathe, and her would be tirade is temporized.
She walks outside to gather fresh air.
I follow her outside. I take the paper towel from my face. I expect the air to be cool and fresh.
I take a breath. It is toxic, like huffing turpentine.
I hear Girlfriend around the side of the house. She is bent over by the garbage can. How bad is it that she has walked to the garbage can to gather a breath of air?
She is coughing and sputtering. I feel like I should say something, but what?
What could I say? I’m sorry I tried to cook a filet and ended up asphyxiating us?
Black Jack blinks hard. His old eyes, accentuated by white puffy eyelids, seem to implore me to be quiet.
The old dog is right.
There’s nothing to say.
I set up a box fan and blow the industrial exhaust into the night air.
Eventually, the toxic brew diminishes and the steak cooks.
I put it on the table.
I cut a piece and hand it to her.
It is juicy pink inside and charred to perfection with a blanket of succulent pepper on the outside.
Though I almost killed us, I somehow feel vindicated.
The filet melts in my mouth in a dreamy collage of deliciousness.
I wipe my mouth with a paper towel.
I hold it over my nose like a bank robber.
Girlfriend laughs, casting me a glance that simply says; thanks for the effort now stay out of my kitchen.
I take a sip of Pacifico. It tastes like pepper. I take a bite of steak. It is pepper to the Nth degree. It tastes like it was cooked over a sulfuric volcano.
I take a bite of salad. Yum. Pepper.
I breathe in the air. Again, pepper.
Oh well. Thank God for the Box Fan.
Life’s Crazy™