Let's be honest... I'm really no more than functional in the kitchen. I can think of three people right off the top that are better in the kitchen than me (evil chef mom, noble pig and snooty primadona come to mind). I only know that because they've posted pictures of their glorious efforts and folks....I'm not there yet. 25 years of production dinners and I'm just now discovering things I like to cook. Not that I'm not good at it... but I haven't been perfecting my craft for 25 years, I've been cooking chickens in the crock pot and steaming broccoli. Hardly earth shattering. How ironic that I made the cooking website... I should have just called it comfort food galore!
Along the way, I've also made some whopping errors... otherwise known as being bit in the butt by the kitchen goddess. This odds of this bite happening are usually directly proportionate to the number of people available to witness the tragedy. Holidays are prime targets as is my dad! But that's because I started early...
- Like the first cake I made and I decided to make boxed frosting (back in the day). I got it too wet because I wanted to make sure I could spread it. To thicken it, I added flour. My dad suggested that I stick with peanut butter for a year or two until I got the hang of spreading things.
- Which brought on the peanut butter cookies I made when I forgot to add sugar. My dad kept saying "there's something wrong with these... what the !#&*% did you do?"
My poor dad, he's been the recipient of some dreadful attempts on my part.
- Like the time I made orange chicken in the crock pot. One word. Don't. It was so far beyond dreadful. I believe my husbands words were, "you picked a dinner with your folks to make the worst meal you've ever produced? why don't you do things like that when there's no one else around to witness it?"
Following that are the holiday events... very mundane, turkeys that didn't get done on time, hams that were cold in the middle. I swear I followed directions. I have no idea why I'm so capable at this now and 10 years ago it was hit and miss! Back to my dad....
We lived in a rental house that had an odd sized oven from which the previous renters had stolen the oven rack. I'd looked everywhere for a new one. I finally took my cooling racks and criss crossed them in the oven as a shelf and baked cookies. Worked great. So I invited my parents over for dinner and decided to make a pineapple upside down cake which my dad loves. You guessed it, that cake was a little heavier than the cookies, causing my little design to give way and I ended up scraping cake batter and pineapple off the inside of the oven.
At our last house, we remodeled the kitchen when we moved in, but we didn't add additional electricity. The kitchen only had two outlets. Which meant you were constantly juggling appliances and cords to plug things in. One outlet had the phone and the coffee maker. That left the outlet behind the cooktop (yup... you see it coming, don't you?) for everything else. I wasn't watching one day when I was setting up to make mashed potatoes. This is what the cord to my kitchen aid stand mixer has looked like ever since.
Yes, and that's my hair too which is always in the way of everything! Burned the cord up nicely, but it still works 6 years later!
This last one is one I'm happy that I don't have a picture of. Thanksgiving blueberry pie debacle. I had blueberry plants at the last house and they were loaded. TOG loves blueberry pie, so I made one. It came out of the oven looking beautiful! I set it on the back burner because I was out of counter space (this was a small kitchen) and was finishing dinner. I turned on the broccoli to steam and was mashing potatoes when the pie exploded. Glass pie pan, hot burner... the kitchen goddess turned on the wrong burner. I've got a turkey ready to carve, sweet potatoes to tend to and a steaming hot blueberry/glass splinter mess oozing down my walls and cupboards, into the bottom of my cook top. Glass and blueberries in the mashed potatoes, the gravy... and from the front room I hear... "what the hell did you do?" At that moment, I wanted to do murder!
See, I'm reliving the whole thing right now! I think it's true, that no matter how proficient we become, the kitchen goddess occasionally rises up and smacks us down, publicly! I try to carry a seed of humility, but sometimes I forget and suffer the consequences... like the half hour cookies that never got beyond dough in the Behemoth's predecessor. Waste of cookie dough! I did it two nights in a row, because the first one wasn't enough evidence!
Has the kitchen goddess ever visited you? Is there a blueberry pie episode in your past? Do tell!
Asthmagirl out!
Recent Comments