Well, it took until the second day of the third month of autumn, but finally we did it — Ozarkansas got the season’s first freeze. And just barely, with a low Sunday morning of 32°F.
So yeah, what we were warned about came to pass.
The clocks rolled back an hour overnight, too, allowing Americans to escape (for a few months) the institutional delusion known as “Daylight Saving Time.” It puzzles me why we continue to embrace that.
Then again, maybe it doesn’t. We are, after all (and to our detriment), a compliant, governable people.
Smudge got me out of bed at 2:30am CDT yesterday, which had magically become 1:30am CST. When we came back indoors, I picked up my phone and checked the weather forecast. This (pictured, below) gave me a chuckle.
The daily cycle of sunrise and sunset doesn’t observe the clock any more than seasons check the calendar. Nature has its own rhythm, and though I understand all of the man-made reasons for standardized time, each of us would be better off if we gave more attention to the cadence of the natural world.
On Sunday morning, breakfast diners and faithful churchgoers talked about how the sun came up earlier. Around the supper table, the conversation turned to night falling sooner.
Neither is true — well, okay, the sun rose a minute later than it had on Saturday. It set a minute earlier.
But it had nothing to do with the artifice of human time.
As advertised, Sunday would be Chili Day. I’d been looking forward to the prep work as much as I was anticipating the finished product, and (naturally) I got started early.
I brought out my six-dollar slow cooker and set it up in the living room on the TV tray I resurrected, bringing the crock into the kitchen. I opened six cans of various ingredients and dumped their contents into the pot, then chopped the fresh vegetables.
The pile of green in that bowl (pictured, above) is five diced jalapeños, impressively big ones. Elsewhere, beneath, are red and green bell peppers, yellow onion and garlic. It all went into the crock, which I returned to the cooker’s base.
Next, meat. I love chorizo, so that’s what goes into my chili. I chose an authentic Mexican brand — everyone knows Señor Johnsonville, right?– and browned it in my go-to cast-iron skillet.
It went straight from the pan into the pot, which I set to “high.”
Two hours later, I seasoned the mixture with chili powder and cumin. An hour after that, I added chopped fresh cilantro and the juice of half a lime.
About five hours in, I think it was, I added a little tomato juice and switched the slow cooker to “low.” That’s where it’d stay ’til dinnertime.
An aside here — I handled a couple of my chili ingredients a little differently than most folks probably would. For example, I cut the stem caps off of the jalapeños and then diced the rest — that is, I didn’t remove seeds or membranes. (I wanted this batch to have some serious kick.) And after browning the chorizo, I didn’t drain off the grease before adding it to the pot. (There wasn’t much.) Fat is flavor.
One more thing, and this is a housekeeping detail I never let slide.
I love cooking in cast iron, but cast iron needs to be cared for. Just as soon as I had the slow cooker loaded and rolling, I came back to my old skillet and wiped it out with a dry paper towel. Then I put a little water in it, set it on a hot burner ’til the water steamed, scrubbed it with chain mail, dumped it out and wiped it dry.
Back to the burner again, where I gave it a coating of grapeseed oil and got it good and warm. Burner off, another wipe, let it cool, done.
Yes, that’s a bit of work. No, I didn’t use soap. If I take care of it this way, it’ll last forever.
The Heeler and I enjoyed a relaxing Sunday, if not necessarily a lazy one. I babysat the chili. So did Smudge (pictured).
The dog and I got outside some. After a chilly kickoff to standard time, it turned into a spectacular autumn day.
I re-stocked firewood in the cabin. Since it was sunny, I let passive solar do its thing and didn’t stoke the fire at all between 10am and 6pm.
I got in a righteous old-man nap, too.
The day’s only real excitement happened early. While tending to my cast-iron skillet, I heard a rifle shot — just one, west of the cabin and damned close. A half-hour went by, and then I heard voices coming from roughly the same direction.
I left Miss Smudge in the cabin and walked down to investigate.
A high-school-age kid who lives just down The Mountain, along with his girlfriend (presumably), were standing next to his pickup. In the bed was an eight-point whitetail buck.
Meat for his family’s freezer. Great to see.
The cabin smelled amazing all day. Between my chili and the lingering fragrance of seasoned cherry burned early yesterday morning, it felt like I was in heaven.
Dogs’ bellies don’t follow the time change, and Smudge’s is no exception. She eats dinner at 5pm-ish, but when she’s hungry, she’s hungry.
I fed her around 4:30pm and decided that I was hungry, too. I checked on the chili.
Rich. Earthy. Perfect. I fixed myself a big bowl and topped it with shredded cheese, sour cream, cilantro and a slice of lime.
It was the best batch I’ve made in decades. The heat was just right, hitting in a sneaky sort of way, and the flavor was spot-on.
To put a wrap on this, and because I have to consider such things, I want to talk about what this pot of chili cost.
I spent $16 on fixins at Walmart on Saturday. Some items — cheese, sour cream, tortilla, spices — I already had on-hand, but I didn’t use all of everything I just bought, either. For the sake of argument, though, and to account for the electricity that the slow cooker consumed over nine hours, let’s say that the total was $18.
Isn’t that a lot for one meal for one person? Yes.
But it wasn’t one meal. I have enough chili left over for another four dinners.
I’ll eat about half of that this week and freeze the rest.
Life is good — very good.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable