This morning, I was telling a story about kitchen disasters to Barton’s morning assistant as Barton & I ate breakfast. Two years ago, Barton had surgery to replace his Baclofen pump (a story in & of itself) since it had been “recommended for replacement” based on a piece of the motor that could stop working properly. A nice way to avoid the word recall. Barton decided to have surgery around the holidays to avoid missing workdays, and thankfully, we were home the day before Christmas.
Since I had missed making Christmas gifts or sending out holiday cards, Christmas morning, I was inspired to get into the holiday spirit by making praline pecans. Barton was already up, but unfortunately still not feeling well due to the lingering effects of anesthesia & the surgery.
I had always used the same bowl to make praline pecans, and in my normal routine, took out the blue plastic bowl and filled it with butters and brown sugar, sticking in the microwave. Our microwave sits just over the stove & oven, so I have to reach up to take anything in/out.
When the timer went off, I lifted the bowl up to pull it out of the microwave, but the bottom of the bowl had melted, leaving the plastic bottom, as well of the contents, into a liquid goo, filling the bottom of the microwave spilling over, dripping down onto the stovetop and down the side of the oven to the floor below.
Of course I was freaking out, and Barton, on the other side of the house, couldn’t figure out what was wrong- obviously the expletives were a little louder than I had realized. This was another America’s Funniest Home Video moment. If only we had had a video camera rolling.
The rest of Christmas morning was spent cleaning up the mess before it hardened into praline plastic candy. Trust me- scraping out the microwave on Christmas morning was no fun.
I admit, I’m not the greatest in the kitchen & prefer to stick to the simpler dishes than an exquisite cuisine. But Barton has his share of food mishaps as well. There’s a reason we have two black labs who both vacuum the floors with their tongues.
Between the two of us, in the manuscript we are working on, there is a whole chapter devoted to the cooking & meal comedy of errors that we tend to play out. It’s great that humor plays such an important part of our lives- trust me, we add quite a bit on our own.
We’ve gotten used to the kitchen mishaps, and Barton has actually broken me out of my shell, as I begin to explore with dishes and spices that aren’t necessarily called for in the recipe.
Still, there is plenty of room for error…
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