Tassajara Dinners & Desserts by Dale & Melissa Kent

Author:Dale & Melissa Kent
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781423611066
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
Published: 2009-08-07T16:00:00+00:00

Corn Oil

In April, before the guest season started, the guest cooks were creating practice meals for the community, and Jeffrey Schneider had come down from City Center to help train us. I was the guest cook making breakfast that morning, and Brooks Prouty was assisting me. We were putting on a pretty big production, trying out breakfast burritos. I imagined warm tortillas, scrambled tofu, grated Monterey Jack cheese, avocado slices, and two different salsas: a fresh tomato pico de gallo and a green salsa with serrano chiles.

I was cooking the tofu in the big wok, and it was almost time for breakfast. We were worried about time and were moving fast—steaming the tortillas, getting the serving dishes out, slicing the avocado. The tofu was starting to stick to the bottom of the wok, so I reached for the glass jug of corn oil that was kept under the counter and saw that it was empty. When I had come in earlier I had noticed, with some annoyance, that the large plastic jug of extra corn oil had been left out on the small back counter near the sink. In the midst of the activity I strode over, grabbed the big jug of what I thought was yellow corn oil and poured a dollop on the tofu in the wok, set the jug down on the counter behind me and stirred it all up. When I turned back around to go on to the next thing, my eyes caught the words written on the jug: DISH SOAP. I stopped.

For one awful, tantalizing moment I thought, “What if I don’t say anything?” But the vision of what exactly that would mean for the gastrointestinal comfort of the community was too much to bear. I set down the spatula and just stood there, watching with an odd sense of detachment as Jeffrey and Brooks continued the whirlwind of checking the tortillas, pouring the salsa, and glancing at the clock. Finally they noticed that I was still just standing there with an odd expression on my face.

“What?” Brooks asked. I looked at the big plastic container sitting on the counter and they followed my gaze.

“Dish soap,” I said quietly. “I thought it was corn oil.” Pause. “It’s in the tofu.”

They looked at me. They looked at the container. They looked at the tofu. They looked at me again. “Oh,” they said. “Oh.”

Breakfast that morning was granola with tortillas and salsa on the side.

—Meg Levie

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