by Lee Hollis
“Well, we’re running three ads during the show, so I’m sure the audience will be sick of hearing about Redmond Meats by the time I show my face in the fourth segment,” Olivia said.
“Darling, you’re needed in makeup,” a heavily accented man’s voice said.
Hayley’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of the bronze-skinned Adonis in the doorway, whose muscled arm flexed when he reached out to touch Olivia on the arm. He was in a tight-fitting polo shirt and crisp dark slacks. He had dreamy brown eyes and matching curly hair and his voice was deep and melodious.
This had to be Nacho.
Olivia’s famous polo-playing Argentinean husband.
Olivia had first spotted him modeling in a two-page cologne ad in Vanity Fair magazine and just had to have him.
And she got him.
In record time.
The world’s dreamiest trophy husband.
“I better go. The makeup folks are going to need as much time as they can get to fix this,” Olivia said, her face flawless and wrinkle free even though she was in her mid to late forties.
“Get out of here! You’re beautiful!” Rhonda yelled, smiling.
Nacho put a hand on the small of her back to lead her out.
Hayley sighed when he turned to go. His butt was perfection. Like a Greek statue at a museum.
The next hour was a blur. Much like the night before with Liddy and Mona in the hotel room.
The pretty personal assistant, Lily, returned with a bag full of food and Hayley was escorted to a private kitchen away from the set where she was able to marinate her chicken thighs. Usually she preferred to allow the thighs to marinate overnight, but she was in a time crunch and her segment was set to begin at 10:45. She heard wild applause in the distance as the show’s hosts were introduced and the show got under way.
The first production assistant returned with Hayley’s blouse and slacks, which were freshly pressed and scented. Then she was whisked back to makeup and hair for a final touch-up, where a flat screen TV on the wall allowed her to watch the ladies gush over Bradley Cooper, whom they were interviewing.
Once they finished with Bradley, Olivia was brought on with her potbellied pig, Pork Chop, with whom the audience instantly fell in love. Olivia talked about Bacon Week and how her favorite meat had always gotten a bad wrap. Hayley didn’t see the rest of the segment because she was whisked backstage with two other chefs who looked equally nervous.
Hayley was placed behind a small cooking station with all her ingredients and plates and utensils. The hot lights started to slowly melt the caked gunk on her face and she feared her mascara would smear and make her look like a raccoon on national TV. But there was no time to worry because suddenly Rhonda closed in and, holding a microphone in front of her face, asked her about what she was going to prepare today.
Hayley had no idea what was happening. She had no clue what she said as she rolled chicken thighs up to stuff cheese and jalapeño peppers inside before wrapping bacon strips around the thighs and securing them with toothpicks. She was surprised when Rhonda opened an oven door and pulled out the finished dish and then picked up a nearby fork to taste it. A staffer must have pre-prepared the recipe so they could try some on the show. Hayley hadn’t even thought of that.
Rhonda moaned in ecstasy and rubbed her belly and then put an arm around Hayley and shoved the microphone in her face one more time. Again, Hayley had no clue what Rhonda asked or how she responded.
The audience erupted in applause, and that’s when Hayley caught a glimpse of Liddy and Mona in the front row of the bleachers, on their feet, spastically clapping their hands and whooping and hollering.
Then the red light on the camera flicked off and everyone moved back to the main set for the show’s wrap-up.
Hayley closed her eyes.
A magnificent sense of relief washed over her.
It was over.
Island Food & Spirits by Hayley Powell
After an exciting few days in the Big Apple, I think I’m finally coming back to earth and reality.
My e-mail in-box has been flooded with requests for the recipe that I prepared on the show, so today I would love to share it with you.
I’ve been kid free lately, so I invited my brother, Randy, and his husband, Sergio, over for dinner the night after I returned home from New York to try one of my favorite new cocktails, a Mexican Martini, before serving my now famous (at least in local circles) spicy Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeño-Stuffed Chicken Thighs.
Dinner was delicious, and the cocktails were flowing when my brother remarked that it was amazing how much I love bacon (I eat it almost every day, cholesterol be damned!), especially after the incident early on in my marriage to my ex-husband, Danny.
The story Randy was referring to happened just after Danny and I tied the knot and rented a tiny one-bedroom house on Crooked Road with an equally tiny backyard.
Like most newlyweds, we were on a very tight budget and always trying to save money anywhere we could, so for our eggs and bacon we would run up the road to the Jones Family Farm on Saturday mornings and load up on fresh eggs and bacon at a low price that fed us for a whole week!
One Saturday, Danny left to pick up our eggs and bacon and was gone for almost an hour. I started to worry, and was about to call Mr. Jones to see if he was still there, when Danny pulled up in his truck. I heard him burst through the back door to the kitchen and went to meet him to make sure he stored the eggs and bacon in the refrigerator. (He sometimes was easily distracted, once leaving an unopened carton of ice cream on the counter to melt into mush.)
As I met him in the kitchen, the first words out of my mouth were, “What in the world have you done, and where’s my bacon?”
Danny just stood there in the middle of our tiny kitchen, a big dumb smile on his face and a tiny bundle in his arms wrapped in a dish towel. He unwrapped the towel to reveal a baby piglet.
My gut told me to take the piglet back to the Jones farm immediately, but I’m a sucker for a cute animal, so I was instantly smitten. I never even heard Danny say, “This will save us a ton of money. We can raise him and then he can provide us this coming winter’s bacon and pork supply.”
Apparently his words were drowned out by my cooing as I cuddled the adorable piglet in my arms and whispered in his tiny ear, “I’m naming you Bubba.”
Well, it wasn’t long before Bubba was eating us right out of house and home and costing us our hard-earned savings, which was a pittance to begin with since I was pregnant with my daughter, Gemma, and not working.
Within a week, Bubba rooted and ate our entire vegetable garden, destroyed every inch of our backyard (which emptied out our already small savings account). We tried satisfying Bubba’s huge appetite with grain from the feed store and any leftovers that we had begged and hoarded from our neighbors and friends.
Even though Bubba was high maintenance, I still loved the little pig.
Except he wasn’t so little.
After eight weeks, he was already a whopping sixty pounds.
Whenever Bubba’s antics stressed me out, Danny would pipe up and reassure me that it would all be over in a few months and we would be chowing down like kings during the cold winter months!
Again, I’m not really sure why I didn’t hear this.
By the time Bubba was six months old, he was a jaw dropping 280 pounds! And he was no longer popular with the neighbors. He had broken through our little wooden fence, trampling and eating Mrs. Gray’s entire prize flower garden. He terrorized some neighbor children who were having their first campout alone in their backyard when he broke down the fence and began rooting around their tent for food, all the while snorting and grunting. The poor kids’ terrified screams about a hideous monster lurking about had every neighbor with a shotgun (which on the island is just about everyone) running around the street and into the woods in search of the Bigfoot-like mythical creature. Luckily we managed to lure Bubba home with some celery sticks until things settle
d down.
His rampage continued into late fall. He ate another neighbor’s fresh fruit and veggies she had bought at the farmers’ market when she left them on her steps while carrying her other groceries into her house. And what was almost the last straw, the police showed up in our neighborhood because some tourists riding their bikes called 911 to report being attacked by a wild boar.
In Bubba’s defense, he was just saying hello. He was a very friendly pig. But his presence was a toll on our neighbors and our now overdrawn bank account.
Finally, the day came when it was time for Bubba to—how can I say it?—pay us back.
On the day Danny loaded him into a borrowed trailer and headed out, it dawned on me that my big sweet boy was about to become a pile of bacon.
I cried and swore I wouldn’t eat a piece of bacon ever again! Especially not my Bubba! I would become a vegan! Yes, I was that distraught.
When Danny returned home, I couldn’t even go to greet him. I was curled up on the couch, a blanket wrapped around me, a complete blubbering mess. He handed me a package of store-bought bacon for our winter freezer and an envelope stuffed with money.
“Where did you get this?” I asked, sniffing.
“Pig farm outside Belfast. The owner thought Bubba was a nice, good-looking, unusually large pig, so he bought him to be a breeder pig so he can sire a whole bunch of giant pigs!”
Bubba had been given a reprieve!
He was no longer on death row!
And I was still able to eat bacon.
I just stopped thinking about where it came from.
One way to do that is to have a strong Mexican Martini designed to help you forget just about everything.
Mexican Martini
Ingredients
1 ounce blue curaçao
1 ounce your favorite tequila
½ ounce Midori melon liquor
½ ounce triple sec
Favorite fruit to garnish (optional)
Add ice to a shaker, then pour all of the ingredients. Shake and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish if you wish, then be prepared to be wowed.
Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeño-Stuffed Chicken Thighs
Ingredients
Package of boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 8-ounce package pepper-jack cheese
1 small jar sliced jalapeños
1 package thick-sliced bacon
1 bottle mesquite (or your favorite flavor)
Toothpicks
Marinate the chicken thighs in your favorite marinade flavor for at least 45 minutes or even overnight for more flavor. Slice the cheese into -inch slices. Remove two jalapeños per chicken thigh from the jar and set aside on paper towel. Place one piece of bacon per chicken thigh on a plate.
To assemble, lay a chicken thigh on a piece of bacon. Put a slice of cheese on the thigh, followed by two jalapeño slices on top of cheese. Roll chicken thigh up so the cheese and jalapeño are stuffed inside. Then wrap the bacon strip around the thigh and secure with toothpicks.
Repeat until all the thighs are done. Grill for about 25 minutes and enjoy!
Chapter 6
Never in her wildest dreams had Hayley ever believed she would finally have a better understanding of what poor Taylor Swift went through.
The plugged in pop star was world famous and dogged by adoring fans wherever she went. And now, after just swinging into the Shop ’n Save to buy a bag of frozen stir-fry vegetables she had planned on heating up in the wok with a handful of peanuts and some soy sauce for her dinner, Hayley was surrounded by a gaggle of excited high school girls who were jostling to get a selfie for their Insta-gram pages.
“Hayley, look this way!” one snaggletoothed, mop-topped girl squealed before shoving her phone in front of Hayley’s face and blinding her with a sudden flash.
The girls actually knew her name.
She wasn’t just “Dustin’s mother.”
Shoppers had to take a detour around them with their carts because they were clogging the aisle.
“My mom’s making your Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeño-Stuffed Chicken Thighs recipe for dinner tonight!” another girl said before hooking an arm around Hayley’s neck and smiling brightly as she snapped a photo with her own phone.
Hayley was disoriented from all the flashes and felt as if she was being tossed around like a rag doll as the girls took turns snapping pictures. Finally, after one big group photo taken by a stock boy with a stupid grin on his face, who was willing to do just about anything the cute older high school girls asked of him, Hayley was allowed to continue her grocery shopping.
After hunting down the few items she needed, she made a beeline for the checkout line. She spent another ten minutes nodding and thanking locals who were checking out at the same time as they complimented her appearance on The Chat. She patiently answered their burning questions about the stars of the show, especially Rhonda Franklin, whom a few of them had spotted tooling around the island in recent years.
The cashier who began scanning Hayley’s items had worked at the store for years and had barely managed a smile whenever Hayley checked out at her register. But today she was beaming from ear to ear, adjusting her glasses to get a better look at what Hayley was wearing, and was uncharacteristically warm and polite.
This was all too much.
Hayley just wanted to get to her car and finally have some peace.
She had never expected this kind of reaction when she and Liddy and Mona touched down at Bangor International Airport the night before. By then the episode had aired and it was now the only thing everyone in town could talk about.
Hayley would be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy the attention just a tiny bit, but enough was enough, and she was anxious for her life to get back to normal.
Her one previous brush with fame was appearing on a coupon-clipping game show a few years back, but that was on an obscure cable network that half the town didn’t even have on their channel lineup. This was a major broadcast network, and not only that, Hayley’s short clip from the show was all over the Internet. Her little stint as Rachael Ray for a day was everywhere.
Hayley mercifully made it to her car, dropped the recyclable bag with her groceries in the passenger seat, and returned to the office to put in her last few hours before she could go home for the day.
When she arrived, she stored her dinner in the refrigerator located in the back bull pen and returned to her desk to check her e-mails.
It was quiet. All of the paper’s reporters were out in the field. The office was empty.
But then she heard a hissing sound.
She worried the refrigerator was on the fritz again and her frozen vegetables would thaw.
The hissing stopped and was followed by a groan and then steady wheezing.
Sal was napping at his desk.
A typical occurrence after he returned from a long bourbon-fueled lunch with his fishing buddies.
Good for Sal. He was having trouble sleeping at night lately, so it was important he get a little shut-eye during the day to make up for it.
Suddenly the door to the front office flew open and banged loudly as Bruce stormed in, a rolled up newspaper squeezed inside his fist.
She heard a loud grunt in the back. The noise had startled Sal awake.
So much for his much needed rest.
“Everything all right, Bruce?”
Bruce stopped and glared at Hayley. “I suppose you’ve seen the front page of today’s paper.”
“Actually, it’s been a little crazy around here today and I haven’t had the chance.”
Bruce unfurled the paper to reveal a front page photo of Hayley next to Rhonda Franklin while she was stuffing one of Hayley’s chicken thighs in her mouth on the set of The Chat. The picture took up half the front page and the headline plastered over the top read, LOCAL CHEF HEATS UP CHAT SHOW.
“Chef? Sal called me a chef?” Hayley asked, unable to suppress a smile.
Studying the picture, she was, s
urprisingly, quite pleased at what she saw.
She didn’t look half bad.
Hayley had previously thought it was impossible for her to take a decent photo. Her eyes were usually closed or her hair was too frizzy or her smile was crooked.
But there she was on the front page of the Island Times looking, dare she say it, not unattractive.
“Yes, the shot is adorable and you look about as cute and lovable as a beagle chasing a tennis ball, but this whole issue is crap! Let me be the first one to tell you, Hayley! This paper is on a major downward spiral!”
Hayley thought it wise to warn Bruce that Sal was in the back, but he didn’t give her a chance.
“It’s been a slow decline! It started with Sal emphasizing human interest pieces to sell more papers! Maybe one or two a week. But now it’s an epidemic! It’s every day! You fly to New York to feed an overweight has-been actress trying to save her career with a morning talk show and you make the front page! I do an exhaustive, hard-hitting investigation on the disappearance of a major medical researcher, Dr. Alvin Foley, whose disappearance may have global implications, and I’m relegated to page four! Page four! Honestly, Hayley, I can’t take it anymore! I’m ready to—”
“Quit?”
“No! Give Sal a piece of my mind!”
“Well, congratulations, Bruce, you can mark that off your check list.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
Her eyes moved behind Bruce to the open door to the bull pen where Sal stood, fuming, the blood vessels in his face ready to burst.
Bruce’s own face suddenly went pale and his entire body sagged.
He slowly turned around and said in a meek, barely audible voice, “Sal, I thought you were still at lunch.”
“You listen to me, Brucie,” Sal said, his voice a low growl. “Maybe if you had come up with one shred of evidence, anything that might explain what happened to Dr. Foley, then I would slap it on page one. But you haven’t written anything newsworthy since the guy just up and vanished. Nothing! So until you stop pontificating and indulging yourself like some armchair detective with ridiculous speculative theories about what you think may have happened to him and start focusing on hard facts, your column’s going to remain in the back pages, are we clear?”