Cooking

Here's another shot of the old wharf at New Point. Even though it is but a shell of its former self, it's still beautiful. Speaking of shells, this reminds me of an egg shell which reminds me of a cooking fiasco I once had.

Now that Thanksgiving is safely behind us, I'd like to talk a little about some of my forays into the epicurean world. (Is epicurean a word? Is it a world?)

Below is a short list of some of the many incidents, also known as accidents, in my kitchen.

1. I exploded an egg in the microwave. It was in the shell, and I'd heard someone say it was a fast and easy way to cook it. The only thing fast was the scream which left my lungs upon hearing the blast and seeing the mess when I opened the oven door.

2. One time while cooking something in the oven, I opened the door up to check on the status of whatever I was baking. I closed the hot oven door back up without noticing the cord to the mixer was dangling inside. Bye-bye mixer. And almost die-die Chesapeake Bay Chef-in-Training when sparks of electricity were flying.

3. One of the first Thanksgivings I had to cook, I woke up that Thursday morning feeling less-than-enchanted to have to be up so early. There's the slightest chance that I had gone out the night before, though it's hard to say, since I was in my twenties and it was before children. Anywho, I took the turkey out of its wrapping, dropped it in the pan, opened the oven door and shoved 'er right on in. I went back to bed. Hours later I awoke to the smell of burning...seems I had neglected to adjust the oven rack and had jammed the turkey right up into the top of the oven such that the heating element was branding the turkey.

4. One time I served up something, I have no idea what it was called, but that didn't matter, because one or two bites into the whole thing, the person I was eating with declared it to be Rubber Chicken. I was known as "RC" for a while.

5. One time I made fudge. I should say I made sludge. Itried to make fudge. I must not have been patient enough to let it reach the proper cooking temperature or something, and it came out the consistency of frosting.

In other domestic tragedies, when I was in 7th grade I took Home Economics and was tasked with sewing a wrap-around skirt. Mine was going to be denim. Chesapeake Bay Pre-Teen's skirt became one very ugly apron because Chesapeake Bay Pre-Teen didn't have the patience to (a) thread a needle (b) learn how to operate a sewing machine (c) read the pattern or (d) did I mention I hated Home Ec?

I have also had a number of cooking and domestic successes, but overall I'd categorize my cooking as "Hit or Miss" with several significant misses and only a few memorable hits. Most everything else is so-so.

As in my family is so-so glad when I announce we're eating dinner out.