GET OUT QUICK ... idodoyou is in the Kitchen!! (Disaster Dinners)

Member Name: idodoyou

Product:	Disaster Dinners
Date:	04/03/02 (169 review reads)
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When I come across this category ...... quite by accident y'know, I jumped for joy!
At the time, and even now, it seems such a great category to write in.
Although, I guess you knew that all ready otherwise you'd be reading something else and I have written about my latest read and probably have done less jumping.
But anyhoo, I didn't, you aren't and so, once the head rush has finished [don't do much jumping nowadays!] I'll ... We can begin.

However, saying we'll begin is easier said than done.

Firstly there are decisions to be made. Disasters to be categorised and memories to be rifled. Y'see, I have lost count of the culinary catastrophes that I have been involved in.
They are varied.
And they are plenty.
Some are small.
And some, well some are big.
Some are so big that they happened over ten years ago but featured so high on the scale of catastrophes that they are brought up [the topic, not the food!] time and time again.
I laugh now, in fact, I think I laughed then. It was my sister that did the crying.
Taking the lead of natural progression, I'll start with a small one. To whet your appetite if you like [sorry .... it was there or the taking!]

My mother makes the best scones.
Ever.
The whole of the Cornish and Devon Cream Tea industry would be thrown into turmoil if she was to head south and start to ply her wares [she could sell some scones too ;)]
However, on this occasion, it wasn't her cooking skills put to the test but those of daughter number one.

Yes, Ladies and Gentleman, boys and girls ..... idodoyou is in the Kitchen!!

Arghhhhh!

Armed with apron, utensils, stereo for company and a list of ingredients and quantities that she had diligently copied as her mother had recited those needed that morning, idodoyou cranked up the volume, set the oven to high and grabbed the mixing spoon with a mad glint in her ey
e.

Things were going swimmingly. Oh, I remember it so well.

Tina was on the stereo, and idodoyou was on a roll.

This cooking lark was easy peasy. Nothing to it. Move over Deels .... [Smith that is!]

Simple. Weigh the ingredients. Stick em in the bowl. Mix em together. Slap the scone mixture on the flour covered worktop. Roll. Cut. Place on non stick baking try and chuck em in the oven for 15 ~ 20 mins until golden brown.
No probs.

30 minutes later I was expecting to enter the living room with a tray of afternoon tea held, along with my head, high. Complete with award winning scones that were, I stupidly thought, going to blow my mothers out of the water in terms of taste and presentation. My lip licking guinea pig audience ~ sister and mother ~ were sitting waiting. Expecting perfection. I'd made such a big deal about my scone cooking skills.

The Strawberry jam was glistening in the pot. The cream, pale yellow and calorie emitting sat proudly beside, and lording over its counterpart. The teabags were in the pot awaiting the boiling water that was to be strategically poured before leaving the kitchen with my feast.

Everything was in control. I was in control.

It was time.

I made my way over to the oven, and slowly but surely pulled the door down. Didn't want my babies to sink, drop, or somehow deflate from some super natural scone size that I was expecting.

Arghhhhh!

I could have cried. My sister did. With laughter!!

Instead of inch and a half delicate miniature scones sitting proud on the baking tray, I had gunk. A treacle like mixture that had spread across the entire area of the tray. Not content with covering that, it had decided to venture over the edge, like the 'blob' and proceed to cover the bottom of the oven. It was like glue.

Arrrghhhhhhh.

My mistake was at once evident. To my mother that was. I was still sure
that the oven was the reason for my downfall. My writing was to blame. On copying the quantities I had written it as 10z instead of 1 oz of sugar!!

I was .... I still am, the laughing stock of the family.
I've never made Scones again.

Although my sister has had many a laugh at my 'foody fubars' she really has no room to make fun of my culinary clashes.

She's famous for making bright pink Tomato Soup that the dog wouldn't even touch. The dog in question was a Labrador. The ultimate in waste food disposal systems. Need I say more.

She has put metal saucepans in Microwaves. And plastic bowls in ovens.

She is the Frank Spencer of the Kitchen. And surrounding areas.

And one particular night, she decided to take me down with her.

Mum was throwing a Dinner Party. Not a particularly special occasion, just a couple of friends that her and Dad had met on the Ark [loosely translated ..... long time friends!]

And although at that time, my scone cooking abilities were nothing to write home about, I could still be trusted to watch the pots and pans. Stir this, and taste that. And kill the flame when this, that and the other had hit the cooked mark. Finally finishing off by just sticking the various veg in various tureens and shovelling it all through to the Dining Room where, by that time, middle aged drunks would be crying claims of starvation and expectation.

It was simple. It was easy. A fool could have followed her instructions.

I should have known from the moment she asked if she could help that things were bound to go wrong.
Cases of exploding Microwaves and burnt water should have reared their somewhat ugly heads and warned me.
They didn't. I let her help. I put her in charge of watching the vegetables while I sorted out tureens and serving utensils.

The carrots started it all. They began the chain of events.

She, my sister, she
let them boil dry. And when you imagine chunks of carrot scaling boiling hot saucepan sides in order to escape, you can picture how dry. Yes?

We, she, didn't notice until the smell came. Wafting up, and under our noses like that of the 'Bisto' whiff.
Panic stations were manned. And she's never moved that quick since.

I ran to the Kitchen door closing the acrid somehow quite sweet smelling smoke in and stopping it from penetrating the all ready red, wine induced noses of the wrinklies next door. We will not let them see, smell, that we, she can't cope.

Nicky, my sister ~ sorry, I should have introduced her earlier ... where are my manners? ~ plucked the burning hot orange missile spitting pot off of the stove and headed towards the conservatory, to A ... cool off, and B ... to try and kill the smoke.

Instead of putting it in the stone tiled floor which, ok would maybe have cracked it, she put it on the cloth covered table.

The table was plastic.
The red hot saucepan went through the top of the table like a hot knife through butter.
The pan hit the floor spreading chunks of carrot, those that weren't welded to the bottom anyway, far and wide.

It gets worse ......

Instead of doing the decent thing and rolling away from the table, the saucepan then decided to stop on, next to a table leg.
The table leg was plastic.
The pan then proceeded to melt and bend the leg making the table lurch forward depositing the now nicely thawed dessert on the floor along with the carrots and the pan.

It happened in slow motion. I swear it did. Time stood almost still as I 'Baywatch' ran across the Kitchen floor watching the carrot induced catastrophe.
My sister. Well ... she stood beside it. And watched the whole thing from less than a metre away.

In any crisis, things are always made worse by the sight of the location of disaster. Our conservatory look
ed like a bomb had hit it.

I didn't know what to do. I could cover up the lack of orange on the plates via frozen carrots from the freezer. But what the hell was I going to do with the once perfectly formed, and mouth watering Champagne Russe that was intended to finish off the meal leaving the taste buds tingling, that was now nestling in amidst burnt carrot, and bits of melted plastic.

Basically, I was up s**t creek without a paddle.
Without a bloody boat.
In fact, unless my Mother and her guests were drunk enough not to care, I was effectively wearing concrete boots as well as being paddle and boatless.

My sister simpered words of apology as tears sprung from her eyes.

Laughter trickled in from the Dining room and filtered through two doors enabling us, well, me really, Nicky was bawling silently letting out intermittent squeaks as she tried to stay quiet, that all was well in the land of wine and whisky. The small tornado that had just ruined any plans of asking for money for being a waitress and cook that night [never one to miss an opportunity me], hadn't broken through the joviality that was going on next door.

I'll admit, what I did next was not nice. Unhygienic and enough to put anyone about to read my words, dining at the house of idodoyou off for ever!

I scooped handfuls of sponge and glutinous pink gloop off of the floor and stuck it back on the plate.
I then made my snivelling sister dissect the bad bits ~ carrot, fluff, bits of plastic table ~ while I carried on with the rest of the veg. Of which, were caught just in time.

Gas off. Drain. Chuck in tureen. Take through. Stick on table. Ran before being asked any questions.

Oven glove on. Door open. Lifting oh so carefully pot big enough and heavy enough to feed the five thousand let alone 4 adults, out of the oven while praying madly to any God willing to listen not to let them make me drop.

Someo
ne listened, I didn't drop it. Transferred to serving dishes. Stuck on table. Ran before being asked any questions.

I had a dessert to attend to.

Nicky was where I had left her. Still crying. And still picking carrots [well, we are from Naarfick!!] out of the Russe.

There was nothing else to be done. The gloop would have to go out dressed in disguise. And believe me when I say disguise.

Slopped in a bowl covered in a mountain of whipped cream, with glacier cherries and chopped nuts on top, 4 slightly gritty Champagne Russe? made their way into the Dining room after the main course. Again, quickly and efficiently. You stop, they ask questions. You get in, do the job and get out again. All the while praying that they wouldn't find a piece of stray carrot.

The dessert was enjoyed by all. In fact, and of which I'm highly ashamed, my Dad wanted, and I gave him, seconds ;(

There was no way the large burnt hole in the tablecloth, and the table could be covered up. We, Nicky had to come clean about that. There was no problem.

A few years ago, we came clean about the dessert. They couldn't remember it [they couldn't remember anything much after the peas came in actually!!]
There was no problem.

To list, and describe all of my culinary catastrophes would take a while.

A long while.

I've yet to mention cooking the Sunday chicken upside down before it became the done thing to do. I just thought the poor bird was bodily challenged.
I haven't mentioned the toffee that didn't set and had to be eaten with a spoon.
I still feel sick when I think about the Orange Chicken and Pistachio that I tried to recreate from Keith Floyd a month or so back.
And the death of a thousand frying pans .... Well, we won't go there at all.

In fact, it might be best if I didn't go into the Kitchen again, don't you?

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