First let me start off with a small IQ disclaimer and let you know I’m a smart person. I’m not a dumbass. But when it comes to cooking…I don’t just dislike cooking a little bit; I hate cooking with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. Despite my 6 years of home economics education, I can’t cook. I’m slowly learning with the help of my friend, but it’s a daily struggle. I eat stirfry 3 times a week. Whenever my girlfriends all get together and talk about cooking and baking my mind just goes other places. I end up thinking about Lord of the Rings, or otters, or why Canada doesn’t have Target, or what the local mall looked like before it was renovated, or when the last time I cleaned out my ears was, or if those times I’ve had an exterminator spraying chemicals all over my house will affect my health later in life, or if I’m one of the 80% of women who wear the wrong bra size. I don’t mind cooking if someone else is cuisiner avec moi, but then I get all self conscious and think I’m doing it wrong. Because I always am.
So here, for your enjoyment, a few recent cooking catastrophes.
I’m Melting!
Yes, I was melting chocolate. Congratulations, Sarah – you now have the cooking skills of a hot day. Of course, I was all excited that everything was going according to plan until I stirred it and it all clumped. Then clumped some more. Then I quickly removed it and looked, devastated, at my previously creamy, white, tantalizingly delicious fluffy clouds turned disgusting and unsightly. But AHA! I beat you this time, Stove! I bought TWO packages of chocolate because I anticipated something bad happening! So melted the second package, dipped my strawberries, drew on them with chocolate frosting (my roommate had to tell me how) and bada-boom-bada-bing, GHOSTS!
The call is coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!
Ok, that was kind of a disaster that I solved, ONLY because I bought extra chocolate.
El Pollo Loco
I bought a LOT of chicken because I had the intentions of freezing it and taking it out at a later date. So, the freezer thankfully did its job and my chicken froze. Of course, because I didn’t separate the pieces before freezing it, I had a huge block of 8 frozen chicken breasts that I couldn’t, for the life of me, pry, chisel or melt apart. So, I defrosted ALL of them together, and then spent my ENTIRE Sunday night cooking chicken for hours and hours because I couldn’t refreeze it. I learned a lesson from that. Indeed.
![house of chicken [800x600]](http://blondemonde.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/house-of-chicken-800x600.jpg?w=300&h=118 "house of chicken [800x600]")
Ok, so 8 orders of chicken? I think we can do that
Oh the crock pot. Everyone on the PLANET is telling me “oh, cooking is easy, just use a crock pot! Nothing to it! Piece o’ cake! Any idiot can use the crock pot and make delicious scrum-didly-umptious dinners! It’s like Mary Poppins in a pot!” Well, maybe I made up that last one. So I find some slow cooker recipes, get all the ingredients, spend way too much time and money preparing some darn chicken wings breaded in something or other, take out the crock pot, grease the inside of the container and then look at it, blankly, for a moment. Now, I could swear the recipes said 4 hours on high, 8 hours on low. Where’s the high/low switch? All I could see was “on.” Now, “on” wasn’t exactly going to cut it. What if “on” was too hot? I didn’t want to burn the house down! What if “on” was too low? Then I’d just have to cook AGAIN when I got home! So, after pondering my dilemma for a while, I took another look at the crock pot and finally noticed it actually said “rice cooker” on the side. ARGH! I was so frustrated at this point that my brains absolutely leave my head as soon as I step on that kitchen tile. And PS, the next day when I took the chicken out of the crock pot (the actual crock pot), it wasn’t good.
Next time I’m in a job interview and someone asks me my greatest weakness, I’m going to say cooking. And then keep a straight face when they look surprised. What is your greatest weakness/insane incompetency/dreaded daily task?
