The Number 2 Son should be rolling into town any time now, coming home for a weekend of Hoopfest and World Cup. The Wonderfully Patient Spouse and I are wondering how the first gazing-upon of The Matt Cave will go -- along with the edict that he's in the guest bedroom from now on. Needless to say, I bought a mattress pad for the downstairs futon. . . just in case the edict idea doesn't fly. Which it normally doesn't.
Safely tucked away in the refrigerator at home is the N2S' favorite meal -- tamale pie. Making tamale pie is our version of killing the fatted calf in celebration of the prodigal son's return. Definitely less bloody. But judging on the way the kitchen looked last night around 8:30 p.m., I do believe they're about equal on the makes-quite-a-mess-o-meter.
I grant you, tamale pie is NOT your typical summer offering. Far from it. It's dense with hamburger, onion, chili powder, cumin, oregano, corn (fresh in this case as a shout-out to summer), cheese (cheddar AND pepper jack) and yogurt-infused cornmeal mush, topped with a sour-cream-and-tomato-concoction, then baked to tamale-like perfection -- IF, and only if, you consider a 10-pound tamale perfection.
Truth be told, the dish is really best savored in January, after shovelling snow for 12 hours, in sub-zero temperatures, with windchill factor of say 30 below. Preferably by a family of 14.
But the N2S is home! It's World Cup and Hoopfest. A celebration is in order. So celebrate we will with a hunka-hunka slice of burnin' love -- tamale pie.
Pass the guacamole, please.
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