By Hot this week. Montana-June hot — dry, intense, unforgiving at noon. I've been up by four-thirty to get the cattle work done before the heat builds. Dad says it's drought-year hot, which means the grass is going short and we'll be buying supplemental hay sooner than we'd like. He watches the sky the way ranchers do — with the particular attention of someone whose whole life is weather-dependent.
I've been moving the cattle to the north pasture where the grass is holding better. Twice a day, morning and evening, checking water tanks. Repetitive work, and that's what I need right now — the kind that keeps my body busy and doesn't ask too much of my head.
Tom Whelan has been teaching me the forge work. Setting the angle before you heat the shoe, reading the color of the steel to know when it's ready to shape. Tom says everyone thinks the skill is in the hammer but the skill is actually in knowing when to stop. "You can always take more off," he says. "You can't put it back." I think about that a lot. The irreversibility of certain actions. The way some things, once done, stay done.
Mom made her chili meatloaf Thursday — ground beef, canned tomatoes, dried chiles, green pepper, bound with egg and breadcrumbs. Not glamorous, but it's what you make when you've got a family to feed and it's too hot for anything complicated. I've been eating it cold for lunch, thick slabs on bread with yellow mustard.
The drinking has been worse this week. I know that. June is harder than May. The days are too long and the nights have too much space in them. The whiskey fills the space. For a while. Then it just makes the space bigger.
Mom’s chili meatloaf isn’t a recipe she measures out carefully every time — it’s muscle memory, a handful of this, a shake of that. But the seasoning blend is the part worth writing down. She keeps a jar of it in the cupboard next to the salt, and it goes into the meatloaf, into soup, into whatever needs pulling together on a hot evening when nobody wants to think too hard about dinner. Here’s the mix.
Chili Seasoning
Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 5 minutes | Servings: 12 (about 2 tablespoons per serving)
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup chili powder
- 2 tablespoons ground cumin
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon onion powder
- 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Instructions
- Combine the spices. Add all ingredients to a medium bowl and whisk together until evenly blended.
- Store. Transfer the seasoning mix to an airtight jar or container. Label and date it. Keeps well in a cool, dark cupboard for up to six months.
- Use it. For chili meatloaf, add 2 to 3 tablespoons per pound of ground beef along with your binder and vegetables. For a pot of chili, start with 2 tablespoons per pound of meat and adjust to taste. Works in taco filling, soup, or rubbed onto chicken before grilling.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 20 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 1g | Carbs: 3g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 230mg