The Pioneer Woman Cooks (27 page)

4. And unless you want to tick off your cardiologist, drain off the excess fat.

5. Pour in the tomato sauce…

6. Followed by the spices and the salt.

7. Stir together well, cover, and reduce the heat to low. Cover the pot and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. If the mixture becomes overly dry, add in ½ cup water at a time as needed.

8. After an hour, place the masa in a small bowl. Add ½ cup water and stir together with a fork.

9. Dump the masa mixture into the chili…

10. Stir together well. Taste, adjust the seasonings, and add more masa paste and/or water to get the chili to your preferred consistency, or to add more corn flavor. Add the beans, jalapeño, and tomatoes if desired. Simmer for 10 minutes.

11. Serve with shredded cheddar, chopped onion, and Fritos.

HELPFUL HINT: To freeze the chili, allow it to cool completely, then place it in 1-cup portions in freezer bags. Flatten the bags for easy storage in the freezer.

MARLBORO MAN: The Cowboy Who Stole My Heart

Forget this, I thought, as I lay sprawled on the bed in which I grew up. Home from L.A. on a self-imposed pit stop, I was drowning in a papery sea of study guides, marked-up drafts of my resume, and printouts of available Chicago apartments. I’d been at it all week—studying, searching, editing—and I was worn out, my eyes watery from reading, my middle finger pruny from licking and flipping through pages, my socks dingy and rank from being on my feet for two days straight. I needed a break.

I decided to head down to the J-Bar, a local dive where I knew some old friends were meeting for a drink. I’d begged out earlier because of the monumental tasks on my list, but by now that glass of wine seemed not only appealing but necessary. But I was a mess, the downside of not leaving one’s bedroom for over forty-eight hours. Not that I had anyone to impress. It was my hometown, after all, the place that had raised me, and though relatively picturesque and affluent, it wasn’t exactly the kind of town that required getting dressed to the nines to go out for drinks.

With this in mind, I washed my face, threw on some black mascara—an absolute must for any fair-skinned redhead with light eyes—and released my hair from its tired ponytail. I threw on a faded light-blue turtleneck and my favorite holey jeans, dabbed some Carmex on my lips, and blew out the door. Fifteen minutes later, I was in the company of both my friends and a glass of wine, feeling the kind of mellow buzz that comes not only from your first sip of the night but from the contentment of being with people who’ve known you forever.

That’s when I saw him across the room. He was tall, strong, and quiet, sipping bottled beer and wearing jeans and, most notably, cowboy boots. And his hair. It was not only very short, but very, very gray—much too gray for the youthfulness of his face but just gray enough to send me through the roof. Gracious, he was a vision, this Marlboro Man–esque person across the room. I inhaled deeply. I needed to see his hands.

I casually meandered to the section of the bar where he stood, and not wanting to appear obvious, I grabbed four cherries from the sectioned condiment tray. I glanced at his hands; they were big and strong. Before I knew it, we were talking.

He was a fourth-generation cattle rancher whose property was over an hour away from my cultured, corporate hometown. His great-great-grandfather had emigrated from Scotland in the late 1800s, and had gradually made his way to the middle of the country where he’d met and married a local gal and become a successful merchant. His sons would be the first in the family to purchase land and run cattle at the turn of the century, and their descendants would eventually establish themselves as cattle ranchers throughout the region.

Of course, I knew none of this as I stood before him in the bar that night, shuffling my feet and looking nervously around the room. Looking down. Trying my dangdest not to look too gazingly into his icy blue–green eyes. Trying not to drool, for goodness sake. And I had other things to do that night: study, continue refining my resume, polish all my black pumps, apply a rejuvenating masque. But suddenly an hour had passed, then two.

We talked into the night until Marlboro Man announced abruptly that he had to go cook Christmas turkeys for the less-than-fortunate folks in his small town. He’s nice, too, I thought. And with that, his delicious boots walked right out of the J-Bar, his dark blue Wranglers cloaking a body that I was sure had to have been chiseled out of granite. My lungs felt tight and I still smelled his scent through the bar smoke in the air. I didn’t even know his name. I prayed it wasn’t DeWayne.

I was sure he’d call the next morning at, say, 9:34. It was a relatively small community; he could find me if he wanted to. But he didn’t. Nor did he call at 11:13 or 2:49 or any other time that day, or week, or month. If I ever allowed myself to remember his eyes, his muscles, his smoldering, quiet manner that had been so drastically unlike all the silly city boys I’d bothered with over the past few years, I’d feel a salty wave of disappointment. But it didn’t really matter anyway, I told myself. I was headed to Chicago. To a new life. And I really had no business getting attached to anyone around here, let alone some boot-and-Wrangler-wearing cowboy. Cowboys ride horses, after all, and they wear bandannas around their necks and name their children Dolly and Travis and whittle on the back porch every evening. Talk about my polar opposite.