Recipe of the week: Curry chickpea chicken stew thing

How to make fucking spicy curry chickpea chicken stew thing:

Buy these things:

Oh, but clean the house first. At least, vacuum and wash the floors a little where they’ll see them first when they come home from skiing, to make a good impression, so their first thought isn’t this feral guy cursing at the cats for the past week.

Then buy these things: chickpeas (800g. organic, except the organic chickpeas come in packages of 350g, and the non-organic come in packages of 500g. so you could buy three of the more expensive organic ones, or two of the cheaper non-organic ones, or – hey! one of each, which gets you closest), chicken breasts (a total of eight, except the packages you find have seven at the most, seven half-breasts, so you get the heaviest package, because you figure that’ll get you closest to the right amount but in the end, maybe eight complete breasts would have been better we’ll see), four bell peppers (two red, two orange). carrots you have. Um, let’s see. You’re doubling the recipe for some reason you forgot. You need lemon juice, carrots, oh, buy some red onions, you have ginger… and the spices you have – curry and chili peppers.

The chickpeas you have to soak overnight.  While the chickpeas are soaking, your wife has a flat tire up in the Alps somewhere and your family misses a deadly avalanche by about 15 minutes. Your wife calls you and says, forget cooking, come and help us out with transporting stuff back. But the chickpeas have expanded enormously overnight, you have like this huge mixing bowl full of them, and you can’t just not cook them. So you drive up. It’s a 3-hour drive each way, well, two at least, between two and three depending on how fast you drive.

On your way there, it’s one of those days where the car goes really fast, it’s hard to keep it to the speed limit although you’ve forgotten where the radar boxes are. And you drive and drive, and try to visualize how to get there. You’ll recognize the landmarks when you see them. You are a visual person. You drive by landmarks, not road names.

You are glad you left early because you can still see stuff that way.

Then you hit the fog and wow. But you make it there and only hit ice on one bridge and sort of skid a little then you’re there filling the car with luggage, you eat with your family and then drive home and somehow Gamma is in the car with you which is good because you figure she’ll keep you awake.

And she does. Listen to historic music (the Ramones, at her suggestion) and listen to her talk really fast, pausing twice to tell you how remarkable you are. Bask in the finite glow of a kid thinking you’re the greatest, knowing it won’t last forever, probably. She says wow, how can you know so much? I ask you something, anything, and you answer me and then tell me 300 more things besides. Tell her you’re a tiresome, pedantic know-it-all at heart. Tell her you learn things when you have a TV-free childhood, and become a know-it-all. She mentions relatives who are pedantic know-it-alls although they have televisions, and you two laugh and joke all the way home. Also she talks about how she has to navigate by landmarks, because street names and so on are just confusing, and you say, Amen.

Arrive home with your eyes sticking out on stalks from all the Red Bull you drank to stay awake. Try to get in the door. The chickpeas have expanded so much they are now sentient.

Chickpeas: What is the password?

The password is always SWORDFISH.

You: Swordfish.

Chickpeas: That’s wrong.

The password always used to be SWORDFISH. Sorry.

Cook the chickpeas while daughter checks Facebook acct. While they are cooking (they have to cook 1.5 hours) boil the chicken breasts for 15 minutes in chicken broth. Chop the vegetables while that is going on, fry them in a pan.

Child: We accept you, we accept you, one of us! One of us! I have an earworm.

Slice the chicken. Add spices to broth. Put everything together eventually and cook it a little and then place it in the cellar to cool. Go to bed. It’s late. Get up. Taste stew. It’s extremely spicy. Make rice to take the edge off a little maybe. Go to work. Try to stay awake. The end.