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.
