When bad things happen to good cooks...

[lagilman]

First, the important stuff. Effective immediately, "wrensergei@lycos.com" and "dymk@lycos.com" are kaput. Ded. Ex-addresses. Book-related stuff should now go to "LAG [at] lauraannegilman [dot] net" (I just re-upped the domain for another three years, so we're set, yay). Personal details can still go to the usual account, and editorial-related or freelancing mail is to "dymk [at] optimum [dot] net" for now. Everyone all set on that?

And now, your chance to mock me!

As some of you know, my kitchen here is galley-style, so when cooking, occasionally I have to go grab something from the pantry. Now, as some of you also know, I'm pretty damn organized when it comes to said pantry, and everything is In Its Place. So I don't always look as carefully as I should when I grab something that's the right size off the right shelf.

So when I dumped the tablespoon of corn starch into the stir fry I was making for dinner last night, my first thought was "why the hell is it fizzing like that?"

Because I had grabbed the box of baking soda instead of the corn starch.

*facepalms forever*

(you were right, sf_deb, it wasn't salvageable. Thankfully I had also set some beef to marinate, and was able to improvise)

No, you really shouldn't let me live this one down. Being book-distracted isn't much of an excuse.


And now I have to get a few hours of work in, because today is Puppy Day!

Comments

[neadods.livejournal.com]

*points and laughs*

[mindyklasky.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of the time someone "helped" me clean my kitchen by putting away spices after one meal, so that the next time I made french toast, I added cayenne instead of cinnamon... (Another non-salvage-operation, and those were the last eggs, to go into the batter the first time round...)

As for your web registration - I read the beginning of your post, and I said, "Oh #*^(#, I need to renew mine by last week." Then, when I couldn't find the paperwork, I looked for the electronic receipt and found that my ultra-organized writer-brain had already done the renewal, in a timely fashion....

Must get more caffeine...

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

Add some cheese and you could have had some eggy welsh rarebit! Yay!

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

Please, we all make kitchen mistakes. Had I done that I would have given up and gone to subway or something. The fact that you had beef marinating even while preparing something completely different for dinner just shows you're very type A-ish, and lazy people like me have NO room to mock you!!!

And YAYAYAY Puppy Day!

[lagilman]

actually, it's because I'm lazy that I had the beef marinating. One evening prepping in the kitchen, and the next day I could just toss the beef onto the grill and have dinner in five minutes. Which I still will, just not as much. *wry g*


(I also buy larger packs of meat than I need, and set aside the remainders for another meal. At any given time there are 'leftovers' in the fridge to be improvised around. You call it planning, I call it preemptive lazy.)

[lagilman]

I actually was doing something else entirely when I realized that my registration was due to expire...this week. Eeeep. The Very Nice Man at GoDaddy tried to talk me into a 9 year renewal, but I'm not sure I'm able to tempt the career-gods quite that much just yet. Three years, that I feel comfortable with.

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

"You call it planning, I call it preemptive lazy"

::snorts::...imagine a suitably valley-girl-ized voice... that is SUCH a type-A thing to say!

[taikyoyo.livejournal.com]

like the time I grabbed the cayenne rather than paprika for the homefries -- and I was the restaurant's cook! Lots of returned plates...

Take some puppy pix...

[jslinder.livejournal.com]

Making ice cream while half asleep - used Kosher Salt instead of sugar....

[fakefrenchie.livejournal.com]

snort chortle snort

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

Hey, what's wrong with Type-A if it means you eat well.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

I have seven boxes of cooling soda in my pantry because the word in Estonian 'sood' is so like the Estonian word for salt 'sool' and I'm usually in too much of a hurry to read the package correctly. No mocks from this part of the world.

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

Not a thing wrong with being type-A, goodness knows I wish I was an A person, I'm just saying... what she calls 'lazy' I call really really on top of stuff. What I call on top of stuff, type A people would laugh at, so I can't very well give her grief for making an understandable oops on dinner!

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

Believe me I make a lot of oopses when cooking at home - and I'm a chef and culinary teacher - go figur!

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

That's what I'm saying, everyone makes mistakes, no biggie. That's awesome that you're a chef. I love to cook, I'm just not that great at it. I'm really dreading thanksgiving this year as my boyfriend and I just moved halfway across the country from all of our family and can't make it back home. He has expressed desire for the FULL thanksgiving feast. I've only ever cooked dressing. I do good cornbread dressing... but a turkey. A real, whole, non-deli sliced turkey? Terrifying! ::laughs::

[lagilman]

He has expressed desire for the FULL thanksgiving feast.

So tell him HE'S cooking it!

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

I saved some cookie dough ice cream from a salt/sugar mess up once. I was the church camp hero that day... ah the memories.

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

He is NOT allowed to cook. No... nononono, the boy can't make boxed macaroni and cheese, let alone Thanksgiving. But I'll at least buy a premade turkey for him... I have the guilt from separating him from his mom and sister. Pseudo-mothers-in-law can sure load on the guilt. As can pseudo-husband's still attached to the apron string.

[jslinder.livejournal.com]

Might work for cookie dough... But not mint oreo...

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

that should be a jingle or something... ::sings:: "that might work for cookie dough/but not for mint oreo!"

dude, I need sleep or something.

[lagilman]

I remember that story!

[handlebar605.livejournal.com]

I don't know why, but a few years ago, one of my housemates got it into his head, that he wanted to make Thanksgiving (and later xmas) dinner, full bird and ham with candied yams and dressing stuff. He wasn't that bad a cook to begin with and as he's an uber-computer geek, he looked up recipes on the internet.

When he moved out, his former girlfriend decided that she would continue the tradition and also looked recipes on the internet.

[handlebar605.livejournal.com]

so we can randomly post the words "Baking Soda" in with any cooking neepery?? :-}

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

The internet is a great place for recipes, allrecipes.com is a great site and youtube has some awesome home cooking videos, but recipes don't do it all!

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

The NTimes (On-line) is loaded with instruction pages. Of course some of their ideas are enough to make Gorden Ramsey weep.
OR - you could try accessing BBC Food pages - their explanations are often a little less confusing. Remember that if you're only cooking for 2 - 4 it's not that different from roasting a chicken.

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

Awesome! Thank you, I'll try both of those pages! but I've never roasted a chicken either... so... ::cough:: I'll try, then if it sucks we'll hit the International District and have Indian or Chinese or something!

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

I think you could also tactfully suggest that your boyfriend help,

"Wouldn't it be so much more fun, Darling, if we do this together, Dear." or something like that.

The most important thing is to remember the weight so you can get the timing right. It's really not hard - I promise.

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

All right then, I think I will actually try and do it and not beg-out, but Sean will have to be on something easy. Mashing potato probably, or salad; the boy is a disaster in the kitchen. Even better, he could do the dishes!

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

All excellent suggestions

[lagilman]

Mashing potatoes is a very macho thing to do. So is making gravy. *nods firmly*

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

I concur - let's hope that Sean does.