Friday, February 27, 2009

The Finer things...

The Queen got me a long desired gift for Christmas. Its a good size chiminea, not huge, but definitely not one of those ornamental ones you might as well just rest your feet on. Its just a little over 3 feet tall and terra cotta colored. It took a little time to get some fuel for it since i don't have a chainsaw that works beyond the extension cord. But a friend has been doing alot of wood splitting and i just went over and loaded up all the leftover chunks which he was happy enough to get rid of.

So i stoked it up Wednesday afternoon and let it burn down to some beautiful coals. While that was working, i came in and made of big ole beautiful pot of beer chili. And Uncle Buck, just so's you know...Fat Tire makes some DEEELECTIBLE chili. Normally, i wouldn't 'waste' good beer on a cooking adventure (normally i'd use some common brew...say like that one that calls itself the 'king of beers'), but this was a special occasion, and that called for special ingredients. See, The Royals had never roasted their own hot dogs...and believe me...that chiminea wasn't the only thing that was stoked.

When The Queen got home we all went out with hot dogs, bread, mustard, and ketchup in hand and worshipped at the foot of the Chiminea. The Royals all had a fantastic time cooking a meal themselves over a small bed of white hot orange and blue flamed coals. There are very few things that are better in life than the smell of sizzling hot dogs and pecan wood smoke coupled with the sounds of giggling and discovery of your children on the aspects of fine cooking and finer dining. I'm here to tellya... a hot dog that has been drug through ashes and coals by a five year old with fire dancing eyes, slung on a piece of mustard piqued bread, and slathered with beer chili never tasted better. It must be a hot dogs ultimate scenario for the meaning of life.

We knocked out about a dozen hot dogs...and The Queen and i only had two apiece...you do the math there. I'm pretty sure The Prosecutor had three. Somehow, four bottles of beer were consumed, shared by all, but mostly by me and The Prince...oh ok, two of those went into the chili and two 1554's went down with the dogs...and lemme tellya 1554's go well with smoke laden chili dogs.

As the coals died down, we had obviously had three...well, four (i have years of experience)... firebugs to keep throwing on more chunks and poker sticks to keep it alive and gamboling happily. Conversation centered around fire and heat and why sparks flew so high out of the chimney...all deep scientific stuff to a two, four, and five year old.

It was a beautiful evening...the winds of heaven and the stuff of earth

2 comments:

Bag Blog said...

I want a horno oven. Of course, a full kitchen would be nice at this point.

Buck said...

...and lemme tellya 1554's go well with smoke laden chili dogs.

Ah, yes. I've found 1554s go well with nearly anything... and even all by their own-some. I speak with some authority here, seeing as how I'm just in from Happy Hour... where two 1554s were consumed. A lil browsing to follow, then a nap, then dinner... ;-)

Life is good... albeit not QUITE as good as it appears to be in The Kingdom...