Rebecca Rather: Big Hair Tart.
Every winter, I ogle and Google cookbooks and online recipes to refresh my take on Authentic Texas Girls cuisine. My pull-out-the-stops holiday dinner always includes a Dotty Griffith country-chic menu, big-hair tarts from Pastry Queen Rebecca Rather, and my very own version of Chicken Enchiladas. This creation, filled with shredded chicken, mushrooms, condensed cream of mushroom and tomato soup, corn tortillas, Tex-Mex spices, and plenty of melted cheese, is a heavenly detour from all that turkey and ham.
The meal is well received; happy faces and clean plates surround the table. After the guests leave and we finish washing dishes, I wander off toward the bedroom, content from imbibing a set-you-back, handmade margarita on the rocks. Putting boots, jeans and velvet shirt safely away, I pull on pj’s and a t-shirt and pad barefoot into the bathroom to remove my makeup. Popping open my trusted Vaseline jar with the blue lid (the preferred beauty secret of country girls everywhere), I lazily run my finger through the gel and press a little glob of it into my eye, rubbing thoroughly to loosen my mascara.
Big mistake! Despite several thorough hand washings during meal preparation, a few grains of cayenne pepper lurk under my fingernail. Now, they are searing my eyeball. The pain is insane. I shriek and grab a face towel, rubbing furiously. Too late! As my eyelid slams shut like the metal door to a maximum-security prison, I stumble to the bed and fall face down over it, tears exploding.
“Sweet baybee Jesus, please help me!” I cry, yowling like a coyote. “Owwwwwwwww, it hurts!”
Hubby arrives at the bedside. “What? What happened?”
“Cayenne. In my eeeeeeeye!” I am choking out words, my head face down in the towel. Feet paddling in the air, beached on the quilt, I’m unable to swim away from the searing pepper stabbing into my brain.
“How did you do that?”
“Fingernaaaaaaaaaaaail!”
“It’ll be OK.” He pats me on the butt. A little too hard. And, his somewhat sympathetic tone contains a hint of amusement. With my free hand, I smack his hand away like a horsefly. “Go get me some iiiiiiice!”
In the interminable time he is gone for first aid (about 2.7 minutes), I descend into chest-heaving, heart-wrenching sobs. My defenses initially breached by cayenne and eyeball pain, I cry far beyond the pepper’s stinging effect. Totally consenting to my tears, I submerge in an emotional deluge. I weep for mistreated puppies and kittens. I sob for the unemployed, the homeless, the hungry, the sick. My tears, unexpectedly fierce, are for everything lost, large and small. For the tragedy at Fort Hood, for Texas. For the nation and our leaders. For our earthly home, continuously battered by insults to our environment, that somehow keeps spinning, giving us yet another day to try and make things right. I cry out the entire year of 2009.
Hubby returns with ice in a little plastic bag, wrapped in a cloth. “Let me see your eye.” I lift my head, sniffling. He turns to the bathroom, finds a hand mirror and brings it to me. My eyelid is puffed up like a Pillsbury turnover. Lovely. But, the pain subsides a bit, then a little more. I am helped into bed, propped up on pillows, holding ice to my face. Settled under the quilt, I quiet myself and softly hum…a song about eyes, or maybe about more than that:
The eyes of Texas are upon you,
All the livelong day.
The eyes of Texas are upon you,
You cannot get away.
Do not think you can escape them,
At night or early in the morn.
The eyes of Texas are upon you,
‘Til Gabriel blows his horn.
I don’t hear trumpets, but drifting off to sleep, I make a mental note of my resolutions for the New Year. My list so far:
1) Write a generous check to the SPCA
2) Find a volunteer opportunity and make a difference
3) Get a short-nail manicure
Rest easy, y’all. 2010 is on its way.
