Saturday, October 15, 2011

The Master of Disaster

     The weather has been kind of rainy and grey, the perfect time to catch up with all things blog, mainly reading others. I been a little lazy about posting so reading what everyone else has is the next best thing. Makes me feel like I'm not such a slacker after all. Besides, it inspires me in my own posts. Here is a small window into just what happens in this brain of mine.

     I had read my usual suspects:
 http://amothersluv.blogspot.com/, my cousin,  makes me laugh (TLC, wait 'til I tell Left Brain LOL), keeping up with family and just all round constant source of all my blog related information.
http://kiddothings.blogspot.com/, funny and charming and I like the way she writes
http://www.grumpygratefulmom.com/, because she makes me laugh out loud
http://www.buttercreambarbie.com/, how could you not with a name like that
http://www.thegourmetfarmgirl.com/. 'cause I love the way she cooks
and there are a score of others. I finally ended up here, although I have no idea of the route I took.
http://madebydenise.net/, specifically on this post, http://madebydenise.net/how-to-get-better-at-failing/.

    After this reading marathon, I had family, humour, cooking and failing all brewing madly in my head. I'd been thinking about my uncle Leo quite a bit lately, he had a great big laugh and loved to use it, he could cook and he had the hands down, best ever, colossal cooking disaster story. It all tied together perfectly for me. The added bonus, I get to use this picture.


 My uncle Leo and his future wife Jean
circa '68-71
Aren't they the coolest?

     I have had my share of cooking failures, lots of them. Every time I'm feeling low about one, I just remember this story. It certainly wasn't funny at the time but after.....ROFLMAO

    My uncle was pretty handy in the kitchen, no Iron Chef, but ... He decided one day he was going to get supper ready while my aunt was at work. I believe it was chicken and dumplings or maybe chicken stew. Whatever it was it involved boiling the chicken. Easy enough. So what do you do while you're waiting? You go out to the barn to do chores, or maybe out to cut some wood of course, I can't remember what exactly. The point is he left the house and was a Craig male.

      Maybe the women in the family escaped this particular, I'm going to go with quirky, character trait. We have no concept of time. If one of us tells you we'll be back in an hour, pin us down to the day,  week, maybe even the month this hour exists in because it does not mean the 60 minute kind of hour you are probably expecting. I remember my father telling me a particular job he wanted done shouldn't take that long, maybe a couple of hours. Three days later I had finally finished cleaning out the chicken coop. When I mentioned the time it really took, he laughed and said he guessed it was a little longer than he thought. Time escapes us.

     So Leo was occupied, the chicken was boiling and boiling and boiling ......................................... you all know what happens eventually. The water boils off. Now the chicken was burning and burning and burning. I've burned things and it isn't a nice smell. I've forgotten eggs boiling until I heard them explode in the kitchen, ruining my dinner and the pot it cooked in. I have never left the house. I know I am a Craig male, why tempt fate?

     Eventually the chicken would have looked something like this,


or so I imagine. A perfect carbon replica of chicken. Not like this,



just a random hilarious burnt chicken picture I found on line.

     My aunt arrived home to a house full of reeking, charcoaled chicken smoke. They had to leave the house. All their clothes had to be dry cleaned, the house had to be completely fumigated. Wallpaper stripped, the whole thing to get rid of the smell. All because he was trying to be nice and cook supper, and maybe get a bit of work done around the farm too. I guess we're just not meant to multi task. It's a gift really, I just wish I could figure out where to return it.

     A bit of family, a little humour, some cooking and, well, you couldn't exactly call it a success. My uncle would have been the first to laugh at a story like this and I'm sure he wouldn't mind a chuckle at his unfortunate cooking event, and it was an event.


A bit of kitchen wisdom from

     Do you have an unfortunate cooking story? Share with the rest of the class. Laughter really is the best medicine.



4 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for the mention Paul! I feel so honoured! I've loved reading your blog and think that you're a great writer just like your TLC cousin ;)
    That was a funny cooking disaster you shared. In fact, I've burnt porridge, boiling pasta and stews many a time - since I started blogging. I'm pretty good at multi-tasking but somehow, cooking while blogging has not faired well :)

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  2. You're welcome. I'm a firm believer in giving credit where it is due.
    I can't even begin to mention all the things I've thrown out, burnt pot and all.
    Funny thing is I'm a pretty good multi tasker but with a narrow focus. If I'm in the kitchen I can have dinner going, be sterilizing jars for canning, making the stuff to put in the jars, washing dishes and scrubbing the cupboards all with out missing a beat. I can even co ordinate between cooking in my kitchen and my BBQ outside. If I start work on something else, gardening, cutting the grass, blogging. I'm lost.
    The only other thing I can do if I'm cooking is listen to music, maybe sing a long, badly, and throw in the odd dance move, and I mean odd LOL.
    Thanks for following along.

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  3. pretty sure a mouse was also burnt in that oven once...although not quite sure that can be blamed on any peculair Craig male gene. LOL

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  4. If I read that on any other blog about any other family, I'd assume you mis spelled mousse. I don't know that story, share time LOL

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Thanks for your comment, I hope you enjoyed your time in the "Kitchen".