Bon Appetit!

As I was contemplating what I should write my next blog post about, my honorary muse inspired me with the idea of sharing all of my cooking mishaps that have gone down in the past. Naturally, there are far too many for me to be able to write about, but I figured I’d pick some of my favorites and pay tribute to the good times and fantastic memories. Naturally, none of these include those less than tasty dishes that just didn’t make the cut. I really need to learn more about cooking. It’s not my strong point, for sure. Laura said that once work calms down for both of us, she wants to have me over once a week and we can cook something together so I can learn all of her snazzy culinary tricks. I’m excited! The couple of times I've been to her place for dinner, it has been absolutely delicious! Now, I ask you to have an open mind as I tell you these stories. Many of them may not be too funny to you if you weren’t there, but just know that those that were involved had a great time laughing with me about it. So, if you don't find this quite as entertaining as you were hoping for, my deepest apologies are sent your way :)

The most recent mishap made me realize that I was not wired correctly to flip pancakes. It’s a sad truth, but one that I am coming to terms with. Bethers sent me some of the COOLEST Star Wars stuff for my birthday, including, but not limited to Pancake molds and a Darth Vader spatula. Boo yeah. That’s all I have to say. Naturally, I tried my luck at making Amy and I some Dark Side of the Force pancakes. Let’s just say it’s going to take some practice. :) It wasn’t even the fact that they were shapes that caused the problems. Whenever I slid the spatula underneath the pancake to flip it, the pancake actually slid right off the griddle about half way. Maybe I’m just really strong. I don’t know. But needless to say, they lost their shape, broke a few places and were all around ghetto, fabulous. But, not to worry, I’ll keep trying. I’m now a pro at cleaning up pancake batter from all surfaces, because you know I got that stuff everywhere! At least they still tasted like pancakes :) I'm chalking that one up for a partial success, at least.

This makes me remember about how the traditional conference pancake got started. It really all goes back to flipping. (this is a constant problem, much like my inability to wink, in case you haven’t noticed yet). This may also be the reason for why I have subconsciously chosen to make waffles every Sunday for my lunch instead of pancakes haha. Anyway, I was trying to flip the pancake onto the stack of pancakes to bring to the table and I completely missed the plate. Not even hit it and it just fell off. Oh no…I completely air balled it. It fell on the floor and there it remained until the end of conference. Kind of gross since it’s two days long, but it became known as the traditional conference pancake and we had one the year after that in honor of my lack of aim. I’m sure my reaction probably made it a little more funny than it sounds, but either way, that’s one of those moments that I’d like to replay when I get to heaven and we can watch each other’s ‘movies’ of their lives. That’s probably not quite how it’s going to work, but I’m sticking with the idea that it’ll be possible. John Bytheway had the right idea when he said that every now and again he’ll randomly wave at the “camera” just for fun. Hahaha. Good times.

My next notable mishap was while I was actually visiting Bethers for a little gal pal time, in Arizona. Beth makes some of the most delicious healthy food and she was making some of her healthy cookies. Not quite sure what all is in them, but they were so yummy! Anyway, she had her hands full and the timer dinged so she asked me to go rotate the cookies (maybe she said flip…I don’t quite remember but that point is irrelevant). In my head I was thinking that I needed to actually FLIP the cookies over and not just turn them around in the oven. So, I grabbed a spatula and tried to flip them like pancakes (again…I’m starting to notice a pattern in all of my cooking tragedies. Maybe I should stop using spatulas haha). Naturally, they weren’t done cooking yet so the flipping didn’t work so well. Finally, Beth was like, ‘what’s taking so long?’ hahahha I went on to explain how I had been flipping each individual cookie and it wasn’t working so well so sorry for messing them up. That’s when the crazy laughter started and her explaining that she just wanted me to turn the pan around so the opposite side was facing the back of the oven hahahah. Oh good grief, Charlie Brown. I think that using my brain while on vacation is not something that I’m keen on doing :) So hilarious to me!

This next one has nothing to do with flipping anything so that’s comforting, I guess. I had just gotten back to Provo after Christmas break and Joyce came over to keep me company. Well, I decided that I was going to make some muffins because I randomly had muffin mix but no other food and it was too late for me to go grocery shopping. I get the pan all loaded and I was so excited and then what happened? I open the oven to put them in and apparently forgot that I have to wait until I set the pan on the rack before I let go. That’s right, ladies and gentleman. I dropped the pan into the oven. Needless to say I didn’t have muffins for breakfast the next morning, but we definitely had a great laugh out of it.

I think this is where I’m going to stop before I talk my way into the lonely, dark corner of shame, but I do have one more funny moment that actually wasn’t me, but I was there for it and it still brings a smile to my little face. Jen was making something…no idea what, but it sure smelled good. Anyway, she had to drain the grease from the pan but we didn’t have anything to put it into. Well, she looked around and grabbed a Styrofoam cup thinking that that should serve it’s purpose well. As I watched her pour it into the cup, the cup began to melt and soon, there was grease all over the kitchen counter. SO FUNNY. Again, I think her reaction was better than the actual grease problem, but it was so classic. If you choose to share a cooking mishap that you have had, there is plenty of room in the corner of shame. I don’t mind scooting over a bit :)

On a completely different note, I finally bucked up and wrestled Amy after much poking and proding and I actually held my own quite well. I attribute some of that to the fact that I was wearing slippery pants so I could slide around easier and she had just wrestled two other people before that, but I totally pinned her down. Boom baby! We’re now tied. Naturally, she wanted another go because losing isn’t her style, and she got me the second time around. I decided it’s better to quit before I’m behind :) Either way, I was quite proud. She said I did real good haha With that, I'm signing out. Please share your stories should you feel so compelled :)