Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal Read Free Book Online

cream?”
    “You’ve told me.”
    “I’m adding years to their lives, which is more than those sewer rats deserve.”
    Fiona shook her head. “They can’t all be sewer rats. What about that nice Bethany Messerschmidt?”
     • • • 
    When it came to Eva’s life, her mom had the awareness of a fifty-cent guppy; there were sad-eyed janitors at school who seemed to have more insight into Eva’s heart than her own parents did. At least her parents had moved the family down here to West Des Moines, Iowa, so they could be close to Eva’s cool uncle Wojtek Dragelski and aunt Amy Jo and her awesome older cousins Rothko (who everyone called Randy) and Braque (who everyone called Braque). Bethany Messerschmidt made fun of people behind their backs all the time, and had no interest in cool things like food or art or books or cool music, like Randy did, though she once said Randy was a “hottie,” which was super weird.
    Worst of all, however, Bethany had called Eva a “fucking sasquatch bitch” in front of everyone when Eva wouldn’t lend her five dollars after school at McDonald’s. Even though Eva drank coffee and two or three times had tried a cigarette and did other things that were supposed to stunt her growth, she was a not particularly skinny five foot seven, and there was nothing she could do about it. The kids at this new school already hated her for being younger and smarter, but since that day, she was only Sasquatch to them, and it hurt worse than anything. She didn’t cry about it anymore, but the word still stabbed her brain.
    “Bethany Messerschmidt is dead to me,” Eva said. She also didn’t want to tell her mom that even the smell of McDonald’s brought back this memory, because her parents loved fast food, especially McDonald’s. To announce its correlation with her trauma would only make them seem thoughtless every time they brought it home, and they loved it too much to ever give it up.
    “Well, you need some friends your own age for once. Randy and his Mexican chef friend don’t count.”
    “The kids my age are awful. They aren’t even human.”
    “Anyway, I want you to give Randy some space until he’s off probation.”
    “But nobody else in the whole family even talks to him.”
    “You know, you only got a few years left of being a kid. You should enjoy it. You have the rest of your life to be on your hands and knees working like a slave. Now hop to it. The bus will be here in fifteen minutes.”
    One of the things that Eva hated the most about being a kid was how everyone always told her that childhood was the best time of their entire lives, and don’t grow up too fast, and enjoy these carefree days while you can. In those moments, her body felt like the world’s smallest prison, and she escaped in her mind to her chile plants, resting on rock wool substrate under a grow light in a bedroom closet, as much a prisoner of USDA hardiness zone 5b as she was.
    Unlike her, they were beautiful in a way that God intended. The tallest chocolate habanero plant came to her waist, and its firm green stalks held families of glistening, gorgeous brown chiles at the end of its growing cycle. Holding them, tracing her finger around their smooth circumference, she could feel their warmth, their life, and their willingness to give.
    To preserve her habs for the rest of the year, she made most of them into chile powder—her parents had learned to avoid the kitchen and order pizza when she did this—and with her first harvest this year, she made chile oil with this hot infusion recipe:
    1 cup dried chiles
    2 cups grapeseed oil
    Cut the dried whole chocolate habanero chiles into small pieces and put into a pan with grapeseed oil. Heat slowly over low heat until bubbles start to rise. Turn off the heat and allow the oil to cool to room temperature. Pour the chile and oil mixture into a glass bowl and cover. Store in the refrigerator for 10 days. Strain through a wine strainer into sterile