Holy Enchilada by Henry Winkler

Author:Henry Winkler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

I know. You don’t have to tell me. It’s a stupid list. But hey, it was really funny at the time. I guess you had to be there.

Emily said we were acting like dumb boys. Robert said we were acting like immature boys. But I say this to you: We’re only ten. We’re entitled to lose it once in a while.

CHAPTER 13

THIS IS THE KIND OF GUY PAPA PETE IS. He took our list and looked it over. He didn’t say one tiny word about how silly or stupid it was. All he said was, “Come on, kids. Let’s get cracking. We got a batch of schmintzaladas to make.”

Papa Pete is an expert cook. He started the Crunchy Pickle and ran it for his whole life until he retired and turned it over to my mom a couple of years ago. Almost everything in that deli is made from his recipes. Potato salad, red cabbage coleslaw, pastrami sandwiches with Russian dressing, tuna melts with tangy cheddar, black bean soup with sour cream. Everything tastes delicious. Except for the stuff my mom makes. She says she’s trying to bring deli food into the twenty-first century, but I think she should have left it back in the twentieth century when Papa Pete was cooking.

Papa Pete told us he knew what was in enchiladas, and I trusted him completely. Anything he cooks comes out great.

We walked over to Gristediano’s and cruised through the aisles, pushing our cart. Papa Pete called out the ingredients for the enchiladas, and we raced around the aisles to find them. We got tortillas and tomato sauce and cheese and garlic and a can of jalapeño peppers and sour cream. Then Papa Pete took us to the spice aisle.

“Now for a little zing!” he said, pointing to rows and rows of spice jars.

I looked through the spice jars. I saw curry and sage and dried parsley and cinnamon, but I didn’t see anything called Zing.

Papa Pete ran his finger along the jars until he came to one that said Hot Chili Powder. It was filled with a dark red ground-up spice.

“This,” he said, tossing the jar into our cart, “is what you need to give your enchiladas a little zing.”

“I don’t know what is zing,” Yoshi said.

“Zing is what puts hair on your chest,” Papa Pete told him.

“Eeuuuww, who wants that?” said Emily.

“It’s an expression, my darling grand-daughter,” Papa Pete said. “It refers to the kind of food that packs a wallop. Kicks up your taste buds. Puts a little spice in your life. Explodes on your tongue.”

“Like wasabi,” Yoshi said.

“Exactly,” Papa Pete said, holding his finger up in the air like a nutty professor I saw in a movie once. “You’ve had wasabi, Hankie. Remember that spicy green horseradish you ate at Planet Sushi?”

“Oh, that!” I said.

How could I forget that? ne night, our family went to a sushi restaurant on Columbus Avenue for my aunt Maxine’s birthday. I’m not a big fan of raw fish myself, but all the grown-ups ordered a huge platter of sushi.

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