I tend to romanticize the work I do in the kitchen. As I am making a chocolate dessert (all too rare these days) or concocting a new fruit crisp, I imagine myself a virtuoso.“Mimi, this is fabulous!” my friends and family will exclaim. “You should have your own bakery.”
I smirk and smile and say something inane and usually that is what brings me down to earth.
I am no virtuoso. I’ve probably had as many disasters as real successes:
The bran muffins I once made that turned to stone. The vegetable broth than inexplicably turned black.
More recently there was an onion tarte from a fancy-schmancy cookbook. Yuck.
When the December issue of Saveur magazine arrived, I immediately turned to a recipe for Provençal bread made with olive oil. The round loaf in the photo was golden and smooth.
Mine was golden and rough. The dough never became as elastic as it should, although I thought I followed kneading directions.
It was enough to make me turn to the no-knead bread it seemed every big-league blogger was making, with various levels of success, I might add.
Everyone has culinary disasters, right?
Obviously I had another such disaster at some point, because I have no idea what the following photo represents. It was in my photo library, so I know it’s mine.
Bread pudding? Apple cake? What the heck? Where was my mind? Where has it been since?
Surely you’ve had similar kitchen disasters. Care to share?
29 comments:
Mimi, impossible to list all of my kitchen disasters in one comment! Let's see....there was the tomato sauce I made in an aluminum pot; as I left it to cool on the stove, it began to foam up like a science experiment gone amok. The matzoh balls that refused to float in soup. The tuilles that turned to runny sugar pancakes on the baking sheet....
Mimi, you would have such a long post to read if I listed all my failures...oh where to start. I've made bread that would have made lovely rocks. I made barbecue sauce over the weekend that I threw away..where is that tried and true recipe I always use? I made chicken enchiladas a friend of mine swears by and couldn't eat them. If we didn't have the failures, we wouldn't have the successes would we. Cooking is fun even if we goof sometimes.
Hmmm, I can't really think of any notable disasters. But I do know that since I started blogging and getting more involved in Internet, a few things have gotten burnt!
LOL, I love knowing I am in good company, Lydia and Judy.
Betty, I know what you mean. I get involved in blogging and forget there is something in the oven or on the burner. . .
Mimi, there are so many disasters I can't even tell you. I so clearly remember one time when the top of the salt shaker came off and in went all of the salt into a pot of chili that I swear would have been the greatest chili of all time had it not been too salty to eat. I think that it's hard for us humans to make mistakes at all, but when they involve dinner, oh boy is it disappointing.
Mary
www.ceresandbacchus.com
My most exciting disaster so far was just the result of forgetfulness. I was reducing some balsamic vinegar, and then I left the kitchen, and then, well, you know.
Two hours later I returned to find acrid smoke billowing from the kitchen, and the vinegar transformed into a hard black sponge with the texture of brittle plastic. It slipped out of the saucepan easily, in a big full-of-spongey-holes black disk. Obviously this is the sort of story that usually ends "so that was how I invented BalsamiSnax and became a millionaire", so I bit in, hoping for a delightful new taste, but no, it tasted like brittle plastic as well as looking like it.
My biggest disasters have come when I am stressed out, which is often, I'm afraid.
Or when I am really hungry.
Mary, I am so glad I am in good company!
Holly, that is awful and hilarious at the same time.
BalsamiSnax - I think that might be a new goal to strive for. LOL.
Let me think - chronological order? Okay
My first disaster came as a teenager determined to impress my friends with my fantastic pizza.
My parents had left to do some shopping. I turned the oven on to preheat and was having a wonderful time showing off my talents when a sickly sweet smell came from the oven.
My mother had a small kitchen and, whenver she baked, she stored the finished baked goods in the cooled oven until dinner. I knew that - just couldn't be bothered to remember.
I rebaked the freshly frosted cake meant for dinner. At a very high temperature I might add.
Oooooh, that's enough for now...
The important questions - how did your bread taste?
Katie, the bread tasted very good - just a little sweet. Very subtle.
Ah, yes, my mother did the same thing in her kitchen - I'll have to ask her if she recalls any disasters. I know I once stored a plastic-handled strainer in the over, turned it on, and melted the plastic, damaging the heating element.
Katie has reminded me of the time that I was supposed to make a cake for dinner. I must have been about 13 or 14. I didn't wait long enough for the cake to cool and the buttercream melted right into the cake. I made another batch of frosting and used it once the cake was cool. Everyone loved the cake, but I got in trouble later for using all that butter and sugar (we didn't think about the calories then, it was the expense that got me chewed out). After that, my brothers always asked to that particular cake, mistake and all, but I wasn't allowed to make it again. Ha. I haven't thought about that one in years.
Mary
www.ceresandbacchus.com
Oh, Mary, that sounds so good!
I am craving it.
I once made brownies with peanuts and did not chop them. The brownies fell apart. My father loved to razz me about my "Whole Peanut Brownies."
They tasted OK.
Pie would be my biggest disaster...won't even bore you with the details.
When I first started making bread I made some clover leaf rolls that turned out to be rock hard...I have no idea what I did wrong but our dog wouldn't even eat them!
LOL. I have a plan for saving stuff that doesn't turn out. Always the cheapskate, that's me. But if the dog won't eat them. . .
Mimi--you just made me feel better. I've been at home nursing a sprained ankle so I've been making bread. The last two batches have been sooooooo bad that the one last night made leave the kitchen weeping and cursing. I don't know what my problem is but I was taking it very personally until I read your post. Thank you!
Mimi, I've had tons of disasters myself. Living and learning, right?
I once saw a recipe for "cinnamon bread" and went nuts about it - cinnamon is my favorite flavor. I made it and in the end the bread was a stone. I could have opened a whole on my floor if I dropped it in my kitchen. :)
Glenna, I wish I could it was just my early bread-baking efforts that were disasters, but as you can see, I still have not mastered bread baking. I have had successes, and made some really good bagels once.
I know: I take it personally too!
Patricia, I had many loaves I could have used as lethal weapons. Since I've been blogging, the kitchen tragedies have been pretty regular.
About six months ago, I adapted an Elizabeth David recipe for apple cake because the original looked weird to me. A reader e-mailed me to say she had made the original and it was awful. So every once in a while I do get it right!
I made a chicken fricka - something from the Paris Cafe cookbook for a dinner party years ago. I had to quadruple the recipe and it was a disaster. Thankfully there was plenty of wine!
mimi years ago I thought i should be a "pastry chef". I purchased a book and decided to make an almond genoise with mocha buttercream. I attempted to whip and blend with a blender and fork!!! I don't need to tell you it was a flat rubbery mat.
PC, it always helps to have plenty of wine on hand. I've made a few of those fricassees now and some just miss the mark.
Callipgygia, thanks for dropping in! I've doen stuff like that, too, which is why I am not a pastry chef, I guess. I used to believe a lot of equipment was not needed and I could improvide. Not always the case!
Ah, that should be improvise...
My first husband once called my early marriage biscuts hockey pucks....maybe that's part of why he's now my ex husband
Goodness, I have had a lot of 'learning experiences' in the kitchen. Many pots boiled dry and potholders gone up in flames. One Christmas I wanted to make caramels to give out as gifts. I ended up giving out caramel sauce. I've tried to make dumplings and ended up with really thick soup. The worst was making a batch of brownies that I was craving and somehow I left out half of the ingredients.
CF, I've made my share of hockey pucks, usually meant to be muffins.
Tracy, dumpling soup sounds great!
Seems they so often involve heat, doesn't it?
The first cookies I made at 12 y/o came out as charcoal pucks. I re-baked two bags of tortilla chips once. And then once had the fire house over for cookies when a tea cosy caught fire!
stop now.
My worst disasters have all been when cooking for French people. They JINX me. I was once invited to a Frenchwoman's house for dinner to make American chocolate chip cookies as the star dish. They were impossibly bad, I still don't know what went wrong. Chocolate chip cookies are usually so easy & forgiving. Differences in the flour maybe?
The worst of it was she has made nothing else but croque-monsieurs--which was kind of weird for a French dinner, really. I've never seen anything so skimpy with guests before or since, but in this case, it really made the cookie failure stand out.
It was my first attempt at cooking for those famously gourmand French and I was SO embarrassed.
Oh, Tanna, Been there, done that, Recently, too. Good thing I have a lot of towels and oven mits. I live in fear of getting really forgetful and...oh, never mind!
Laura, I am sure it was the flour, not you. You know, I made an apple crisp with French flour and it turned out OK (not fantastic), but it was one of those deals where you make the crust with flour, sugar and cold butter until it is grainy. I guess you cannot go wrong with that.
My husband could answer this one with just two words: lead bread.
LOL.
We've all made it, Cyn.
I once salvaged some bran muffins by turning them into a warm cereal with milk and fruit.
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