Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Black pepper is not found in the produce aisle.

It was my turn to make family dinner for my roommates, so I decided I would go all out and make my mom's super secret, award-winning Cincinnati chili recipe.

A quick side note about Cincinnati chili for those who have never had it before: It's unlike any chili you've ever eaten. There are no beans in it and you eat it on noodles. When I announced to my roommates I would be making chili, the response was along the lines of, 'I don't like chili.' Except everyone loved it.

Anyway, this was the first time I'd ever made this chili and I'd never watched my mom make it so all I really had was the recipe to follow. And my phone to call my mom. I'm at the grocery store buying all the ingredients, which include ground beef, red pepper, black pepper and a bunch of spices. Using my superior grocery store knowledge, I walk into the produce section and find myself a red pepper. Then I start looking everywhere for a black pepper.

I have this fear of asking stupid questions in the grocery store (completely justifiable, too), so after getting all the other ingredients and still missing this black pepper, I call up my mom. I tell her I found a red pepper, but WHERE are the black peppers?? She just laughs at me and explains that black pepper is a spice (like, the pepper that's in a pepper shaker) and that the red pepper is also a spice, so put that bell pepper back.

Whooooooops! So I put the bell pepper back, grab the right peppers and go home and make the chili. Which turned out delicious. Then, months later, as I'm visiting home for the holidays, my mom brings up this whole situation again. I try to defend myself with a, "how was I supposed to know?!" My mom's argument is that she has failed as a mother because I never watched her cook or went to the store with her to know that black pepper is a spice.

Then she started saying something about a Home Ec class or something... sorry mom, too busy taking math and science classes for that!