I recall that autumn day decades ago when I entered my future in laws’ kitchen where three aproned ladies huddled around the big white stove, focused on the simmering contents of a huge preserving kettle. The aroma was wonderful. I loved it!
Not wanting to interrupt the cooks, I dashed into the butler’s pantry where I breathed in deeply, filling my lungs with the luscious smell of chili sauce.
Years later, as my husband and I drove from Toronto to Vancouver to begin our married life together, a shiny new preserving kettle wedding gift rested in a protected spot in the sedan’s trunk. The chili sauce recipe was safely stored in my purse. That September, only a few weeks after our arrival in BC, my husband and I stood in our first kitchen, bumping elbows at the kitchen sink, carefully preparing our very first batch of chili sauce.
For twenty-five years, wherever we lived, in Petawawa, Calgary, Winnipeg, or Ottawa, we stood, side by side at our kitchen sink, happily devoting an entire autumn day to prepare our best chili sauce. We skinned, chopped, measured, mixed, stirred and enthusiastically jarred each batch of that superb sauce. There were times when I thought my husband might hurl himself into the pot as he hovered so close above the fragrant steam. Every single year he devoured more than a full loaf of bread checking the taste and consistency of his favourite relish, moaning with ecstasy as a bit of hot sauce touched his taste buds.
Still, an annual family habit, my sons and their wives make chili sauce today and share it with me. Each time I taste a wee dollop I think of my husband, of my wonderful memories standing close beside him, together, at our kitchen sink, sharing a project with the man I loved.
Because little things do matter.
By J Alexander