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Step 2: Assemble the edibles
Once we had our recipe ready and our food in hand, it was time to get cookin'. Seeing as how my knowledge of engines can be summed up as "it am hot place which do make car go vroom vroom," Jason was in charge of finding the cooking spots. He decided on a space down near the exhaust manifold for the fish, and the top of the intake manifold for the sausage and veggies. The theory being that the fish is raw and can kill, so it needs more cooking than the sausage.
You Emeril Lagasse fans will be happy to hear that Jason muttered "bam" every time he shook lemon pepper onto the fish.
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While Jason was looking for cooking locations, I started chopping the kielbasa, peppers, and onions. Seeing as how Chrysler has yet to provide a cutting board as part of its minivan options packages, I simply made a catch basin out of some tinfoil and chopped the stuff up in the way that every safety tape and mother tells you not to: holding the food in one hand and cutting towards my body with the knife. I bet Wolfgang Puck started out the same way — with a knife in one hand and a lap full of sausage.
Anyway, once Jason had chosen the cooking spots, he quickly prepared the fish. In other words, he took it out of the wrapper, shook lemon pepper onto it, and wrapped it in three layers of foil.
As we worked, an older man sidled up next to the van and said "Snackin' on sausage and peppers?" We told him of our Great Plan, and he related a little engine-cooking anecdote of his own. Seems that one time he decided to heat up a can of beans on his Cat (I'm assuming Caterpillar tractor, but who really knows in this day and age?) and discovered how heat + liquid = enough steam pressure to blow open a tin can. I noticed Galen looking nervously at the van's rental agreement, so I sent "go away" brain waves at the oldster.
After a surprisingly bloodless preparation, the foil package of kielbasa, peppers, and onions (looking like a silvered football) was ready to go. We slipped it on top of the intake manifold, slammed the hood, and hit the road. We figured that about an hour at 70 mph oughta do it.
Nothing says "yummy" quite like the phrase "Engine oil - See owner's manual."
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But how did it all taste? Without further ado, I give you: the results of our experiment.
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