By Golly I have had weird adventures à la GONZO in the kitchen.  Was way behind with sending out books, then a vacation in Florida, back to Vermont the end of January to frozen pipes and then one of a previously frozen toe became infected and half of it wasdepedicated at Copley Hospital and I am housebound, crippled with something like a lotus foot, oh Lordy. You know, during the execution I asked the OP crew to keep the toe for me, which they didn’t like too much so I had them make a Photo.

Ugly little thing, sort of like an hors d’oeuvre you’d find lined up on little plates in a tapa bar in Barcelona, or spiced and fried amidst sliced pig ears in a Chinatown Szechuan restaurant on Mott Street.

I’m not into toe cannibalism. Want to see it?… I thought not.

So the other day I made a ratatouille with eggplant, fire smoked pepper skins, onion, zucchini, oil cured black olives, habanero flakes, and several squirts of Srirachi.  I made enough to last several days.

When I am bored with plain old ratatouille I rejuvenate it. Sometimes I add more veggies but this time I turned it into spaghetti sauce.  I had a bowl of hamburger mixed up with a peanut satay sauce, mushrooms and whatever lay around. Cooked and frozen.

Squirreled around in the freezer, grabbed the bowl and mixed it in with the ratatouille. Well, it was early morning and I’m not very cognizant of anything. The test taste—just a spoonful. Hmmm.

Damned sweetest spaghetti sauce I ever tasted…UNHHH…Oh GOD! I HAD SOME HARRY AND DAVID PEARS FROM OREGON THAT HAD GONE PAST PRIME SO I MASHED AND FROZE THEM TO BECOME, AT A LATER DATE, A SORBET AND I THOUGHT IT WAS THE FROZEN HAMBURGER MIXED WITH MUSHROOM, ZUCCHINI AND PEANUT SATAY SAUCE!!! NOT!!! I HAD POURED THE MASHED PEARS INTO THE RATATOUILLE!

There was a good chunk of the mashed pears still frozen in the saucepan and I scooped it out, dunked it in water, and dropped it in a small bowl. Next morning it was perched on my grapenut flakes with a seeding of Wyman blueberries. It was smacking good.

Back to the Ratatouille-mashed pear spaghetti sauce. What the hell, now I had concocted a ratatouille blessed with frozen gourmet mashed pears so I might as well continue and fired up the gas stove, stirred away and put the tasting spoon to use. Too sweet. Out come the achiote packet, the habanero flakes, some basil and more Sriracha. Slowly it came around. Left it for a couple of hours, cooled it, tasted it…A ying and yang (yes that’s the right word) spaghetti sauce, sweet, almost fragrant, but hot, the habanero giving it an early boca freshening, I almost felt it could stand some coconut and more peanut satay yes I did.

But I didn’t and one of the great mysteries of GONZO cooking is whether coconut and more peanut satay sauce would have made it heavenly or a down-the-grinder failure.

If you dare copy my pear spaghetti sauce, you don’t have to use Harry and David pears that are a variety of Comice. (If you learn too much about how Harry and David business was skinned, you might get upset). Boscs will do, just let them soften and bruise, then mash ‘em.

Oh, I forgot. I sprinkled cinnamon on my mashed pears before I froze them.

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A HOLY GOD GOOD GONZO COCKTAIL

This is what I drank when working on the ratatouille-pear spaghetti sauce.

In a small mason jar or whatever you use, drop in some ice and fill up half way with Polar orange diet drink with 10% orange pulp.

Top off with Myer’s Jamaican dark rum.

Add a slice of lemon, then a dash of Pechnaud Aromatic Bitters

Mix with your finger and sip and gulp!  Might be good in the summer with tonic soda.

Posted in Gonzo Chef

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