Small Town Cooking

I wouldn’t necessarily say I live in a small town, it’s more of a small village.  But not necessarily in the British sense though: small amount of people over a vast amount of space.  I have to say, it took us about a year to finally feel like we wanted to be here.  It was a huge culture shock to us both.  We got here and had to adjust from “it would be a great place to vacation” to “farce, we have to freakin’ live here”.  Ian?  He took it in his pee pee-holding, snot-pickin’ stride.  It’s nice though, going from crazy-you-might-die traffic to complete calmness.  Heavy traffic here is 6 cars in front of you at the four-way stop.  There’s no traffic lights, certainly no roundabouts, and for that matter, very few pavements (sidewalks) – including on my street.  Most people know each other, and for the most part, you can tell an out-of-towner because they’re the ones not wearing Wrangler jeans and not walking with an invisible horse between their legs (and that’s just the women).  Eighty percent of the women here are, shall we say, non-threatening?  But very sweet people, of course.  There’s been a few days I have dropped Ian off at pre-school wearing absolutely no makeup and feeling completely comfortable with it.  I would never have dreamed of it in Utah.

Anyway, I had a point.

For Hallowe’en, we went to our local Church’s Trunk or Treat.  Everyone was asked to bring chili, so I obliged.  I thought variety might be the best approach, so I searched for a great Chili Verde recipe, as I had never made it before.  You know the kind, a soft green colour, made with chicken and not beef.

Anyway, I got there, sat my covered casserole dish down and opened it up.  A sweet old man who is known for his incessant teasing stopped and stared at it.

“What’s that?  That’s not chili.”
“It’s Chili Verde”, I offered.
*silence, crickets chirping*
“It’s made with green salsa and chicken instead of ground beef.”
“Oh.”

I made it again for dinner tonight and couldn’t help but think about the potential ruckus I could have caused.

Welcome to Montana.

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