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The never-ending dinner
Published: 6/14/2007 2:26 PM
Last Modified: 6/14/2007 2:26 PM

I started making dinner at 6 o’clock last night. We ate at 9:30. It was one of those nights, or one of those dinners.

Chicken enchiladas shouldn’t take so long, right?

A whole chicken went into the stockpot with some onion and jalapenos. The chicken simmered and I stewed, as I forgot about the chicken all together until it had gone a little past done. Fine. The chicken could be saved. I sliced it into strips and tossed it into a bowl with a can of Rotel tomatoes.

Time to make the sauce. I decided on a cheese sauce – made a roux and added some chicken broth and milk (skim, since that was what was in the refrigerator), and then added some cheese, salt and pepper.

By this time, Larry King was on, which is usually just about the time I’m cleaning up after dinner and maybe even eating a little ice cream. But not this night – instead I watched Larry King interview Larry Birkhead while my sauce refused to thicken. A protest against the Larry’s?

Eventually the sauce thickened, the tortillas were dipped in hot chicken broth, filled with chicken and more cheese and then packed side by side into a baking dish. Sounds simple, but all of that stuffing, rolling, placing and saucing went on and on.

All of this made me remember a few other never-ending dinners. One famous one was an enchilada recipe (Is this a theme?) called Firemen’s Enchiladas from “Emeril Live.” Not only did they take half a night to make, they tasted awful. I’m sure it was the cook and not the recipe. That was eight years ago, and to this day, when I make enchiladas my husband asks “Not the firemen’s enchiladas?”

My most memorable never-ending dinner ended with me putting dinner on the table at 10 o’clock with only one contact. Midway through a maddening Martha Stewart recipe for a “simple” Thai dinner, I rubbed my jalapeno-drenched fingers into my right eye. The jalapeno wouldn’t come off of my contact, and I couldn’t find my glasses, so I cooked the rest of the dinner 20/20 from the left and 20/800 from the right.

That might explain the outcome of the dinner, or why my family calls me the Crying Chef. But not the Sneezing Chef – that’s another story.



Reader Comments 1 Total
Another Natalie fan (6 years ago)
Glad to read that never-ending dinners happen to expert chefs too!
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Food Writer Nicole Marshall Middleton joined the Tulsa World in May 1993 after graduating from Oklahoma State University. She has covered crime, city government and general assignment beats during that time - but mostly crime. But when she isn’t at work, Nicole is a devoted food hobbyist. She enjoys meal planning and cooking with her husband, Steve, every day of the week and on holidays it’s a family affair. When the opportunity to become the food writer at the Tulsa World presented itself in the summer of 2011, Nicole jumped at it. She is excited to explore a new side of Tulsa and make the transition from crime to cuisine. .

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