It was called “Summer Garden Delight”. It was summer time. We were bored. I was young and innocent. The kitchen seemed like a great place to do something highly amusing. We threw some vegetables in a pot. We threw in some chili powder. We added water. We threw in some more chili powder. Did I mention that I was young and innocent?

Thank you, Mom, for letting us go at it with no instruction or guidance. It was an important step in our maturing process.

The perpetrators of the Summer Garden Delight

Look at the blond one. It was all her fault! She led me down the primrose path! She instigated the chili powder debauchery, I swear!

Years later: a more mature approach to the kitchen

(please disregard the leopard print underwear hanging from my belt)

Our concoction was completely inedible. I wish there were a “lick and taste” option on the computer screen so that y’all could understand exactly how inedible this was. Then again, I just got an image of people in offices across America dragging their tongues over their computer screens—OK, bad idea. At least that mental picture is saving me a trip to the patent office.

Also, can anyone explain why I just said “Y’all”? I’m not Southern. The blog made me do it!

Back to the point: since that fateful day, I prefer to cook edible things. I generally abstain from heaping in tablespoons upon tablespoons of chili powder, for example, which my husband appreciates–I just know he does. So in the spirit of human progress, and to celebrate my personal and culinary growth between ages 9 and 27, tomorrow I am posting a recipe called “Mush”. Just as “Summer Garden Delight” was a poetic name but a hideous substance that only an alien freak would consume, “Mush” is a hideous name for a delicious dish that no alien would ever consume. Are you confused? Well it’s kind of like one of those “this is like that” questions on the SAT. Right? Right. OK, try not to get hung up on the name and instead envision a very simplified form of ratatouille, in a skillet. I’ve even thought of re-christening it “simple stovetop ratatouille” … but it’s been “mush” for so many years that renaming it might throw the universe off its orbit. Its simplicity makes it the perfect work night meal. And the garlicky flavor … out of this world (not literally “out of this world”, because that would make it alienesque, which as we have already covered, it is not).