Improv

Sometimes the supporting act steals the show

I usually plan my meals. Dinner, almost always; breakfast, typically as I’m getting ready for bed; and lunch…well, lunch is so easy I don’t really care about my own, but for others, I’m great at providing mid-day nourishment. The weekend days start as they usually do, and the question about dinner comes up no later than 11:00 am. And I’m generally the one asking. “What are you thinking for dinner?” What I’m really asking is, “If you want something that’s going to take a while, please let me know now so I can plan accordingly.” I’m not trying to be rude about it. I’m actually much more excited if we’re making something fun. So, 11:00 a.m., usually well after the last of the coffee has been drunk and the kids are starting to get hungry again, is an imprinted last call. This, to me, is the cut-off. It gives me time to run to the store if I need anything and also will allow for almost any recipe.

Some days, you have too much going on, and errands take over, and you make some snap decisions. Despite being at the grocery store as a family, we really didn’t have any solid idea what we were having for dinner when we walked in. Although I think, much like going to the grocery store on an empty stomach can be crippling to your wallet, trying to come up with one cohesive plan for dinner while marking off food items from your digital shopping list and making sure your kids haven’t grabbed a handful of fruit-flavored Tootsie Rolls from the bulk area and stuffed them in your back pocket can be an almost impossible ask. Anyway. Coming up with dinner usually starts with a protein. Pork loin. Done. Got a big one. So big, I thought it might be one of those packs where there are actually two cuddling in the same pack. What else? Rice? We have plenty of that, and the kids will eat it. Great. Lisa offers some help, “I made that guava preserve and it’s still in the fridge. Want to do something with it?” “Oh yeah, it’s good and I think I can make something like a barbecue sauce with it.” Great. We can grab a cucumber on the way out for a salad, and we’re done.

The thing is. Dinner is rarely that simple. Yes, I absolutely could have done all the things I was loosely planning at the store; guava is really awesome and I wish I could use it more. But when you’re not following a recipe strictly, you kinda start to drift. I started with the cucumbers and made a salad, which turned into a Greek salad. No biggie. I could eat Greek salads most nights by themselves and be super happy. I set the bowl aside by the sink. There it would wait, a handful of yellowish-green pepperoncini sitting on top wondering what other plates they would be joining.

Pork loin. For sure. That didn’t change, except that I decided not to actually use that guava in the fridge—I think it’ll be better with some kind of breakfast. Plus, Lisa worked so hard on it and we don’t have a ton of it to be futzing around with, trying to see if it’s a good substitute for peaches or something. I’ll try again another day. I grabbed a couple of small sheet pans and put them by my cutting board. I like to season my proteins as early as I can, especially if I’m grilling them. I want at least 30 minutes so the salt has some time to penetrate into the meat. The pork was seasoned with some Creole seasoning because it happened to smell good to me at the moment. Did it make sense? Not really, but I was on a roll. Now the rhythm is starting to kick in and we’re figuring out some stuff. Next, I washed the rice, got it started in the rice cooker, and headed outside to start the propane grill.

I keep produce on my counter close to my salt and other things I’m always grabbing, like garlic and avocado oil. As I came back inside, I could see a happy little habanero looking at me from across the room. Come over here, chop me up and eat me for dinner, it said, in an almost sassy way. What do you expect? And who was right next to the habanero troublemaker? His friend, a perfectly ripe mango who didn’t know what he was being roped into. Yeah. Now we’re talking. I love both of these flavors, and they just happened to be at the right place at the right time. First I was excited for the pork, then the Greek salad, and now my entire focus and joyful anticipation were centered around the soon-to-be mango-habanero relish.

I’ll add the recipe for the relish here since it’s still fresh in my mind. I guess one benefit of cooking for as long as I have is that I don't always have to rely on recipes or videos. Oftentimes, restaurant chefs have to improvise on the fly when they’re out of an ingredient or some minor tragedy happens in the back of the house. You just kind of know what slots in for what and what’s missing, if anything. Sometimes you see some ingredients that want to party with you and you have to just go with it. It’s a reminder not to take home cooking too seriously and that improvising gets easier the more you do it.

And finally, the pepperoncini peppers let out a sigh of relief when their bowl was placed on the table, where they, peeking over the rim, saw a grilled and sliced pork loin topped with a bright and deliciously acidic mango-habanero relish.