Laugh Quotes

Okay, so I can’t be the only person in the world who has unintentionally released THINGS from my kitchen. You know. Monstrosities the likes of which should never grace a plate or be seen by sane men. Generally, if you listen to my husband, I’m a damned good cook with what I know, but I’m always learning, and along the way things sometimes get . . . messy.

So! I’d like to hear some stories about your greatest/worst/funniest culinary mishaps. Top Chef premiers tonight, and I need some good tales to get me in the mood. A terrible recipe, a mistaken ingredient, or just a dinner disaster. Best story gets the Best Answer prize, of course, and you get to make some people laugh or grimace with sympathy.

I’ll start. I’m a big fan of Alton Brown (he makes learning fun! ) and recently I saw the Duck episode. He basically shows you how to strip down a duck into quarters and cook it in a way that renders most of it’s fat out, making it leaner and tastier. My biggest mistake in attempting this myself a few days later may have been the fact that my knives were about as sharp as playskool safety scissors, but I also had no experience disassembling birds whatsoever. The carnage that day was terrible, I tell you. I abandoned my ill-suited kitchen shears halfway through and simply resorted to hammering on the joints with an extremely dull cleaver. It was like something out of Kill Bill. I de-boned sections that didn’t need de-boning and I did it POORLY. I had bits all over the front of my apron. It took me over an hour for one small bird. To top it all off, I ended up forgetting it in the oven for over an hour while I got distracted in the herb garden by something shiny, like a small, stupid puppy would. Burnt to a brick. Oh well. When my husband got home and asked what was for dinner, I just said “Nothing” and changed the subject. At least it was a lesson in humility.

So come on! Don’t be shy. Share you stories and maybe spare someone else the misfortune of making the same mistake.