This recipe is highly modified from Jody's original recipe, which included many notes like this:

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (i wanna know where the skank ho olive oil is)

While I realize that cutting out his commentary ruins the reading of the recipe a bit, I'm hoping that it doesn't ruin the taste of the finished dish. This is one of several recipes he's fired out to me lately, in an attempt to help me liven up the Many Forms Of Low-Fat Chicken Cooking we're doing these days.

You know, it'd be kinda nice to be able to do some kind of food/nutritional reading on the web without hearing about that damned Atkins Diet all the time. It would really make my reading and research a bit easier, when sometimes all I want to know is the approximate calorie/nutrient breakdowns for some foods and instead I get 46,582 versions of

"I Lost 243 Pounds In Seven Minutes With The Atkins Diet!"

God. Shut up already before I deck all of you. (I've earned these new biceps. Don't taunt them. They hit back.)

In my research, my studying, and through the occasional posterior factual extraction, I have come up with a radical new idea, which I plan to patent and sell to the world:

"Burn more calories than you eat and you'll lose weight."

"The house was different without you here. At night, the only sounds were the sounds of the house settling. It was kinda spooky."

"Got used to my late-night noises, hmm?"

"Yeah. A bit of music, and the taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap of keys. Wasn't quite the same without them."

- Jeff

I have a confession to make. It will surprise a few of my friends, but not Jeff, who has insisted in the truth of this statement for quite some time, to my disbelief:I am a chilehead.

* * * * *

Ages ago, someone who didn't know me very well asked me what my favorite restaurant was. (Anyone who knows me well would inherently recognize the dangers and long-windedness inherent in such a topic, and would steer clear. It's almost as bad as asking me about my cats.) My response was typically obtuse, yet truthful:

"What kind?"

"Oh, any."

I wish I could remember the gist of my response, but I told the truth. If I want to go to a Japanese steakhouse, I have to go to Tuscaloosa, to have Ben-Kei's shrimp sauce. If I want sushi, it's Vancouver. Blue crab? The little shack that Andy took me to a few years ago. Cheesesteaks? Philadelphia. Indian? Little Rock.

Sometimes, try as you might, what you want to write doesn't quite coalesce on the page in the way that you'd like, and you find yourself grasping at straws. Sometimes you find yourself trying desperately to stay on-topic, when the lure of an off-topic, but appealing, conversation, keeps drawing your metaphorical eyes back in its direction.

I tiptoed out early on a Saturday morning to buy ingredients for salsa, leaving my spouse, still sleeping, to be guarded by the house cats. I bought a shower gift and salsa ingredients, and was well on my way through processing the vegetables into finished salsa by the time Jeff woke up.

It had to get done, not because it was a chore but because I had promised, and it was my own fault that I'd stayed up late with friends the night before, talking and playing games instead of shouldering responsibility and purchasing habañeros and peppers for food-making.