I loved reading about all the wonderful men in the family...we didn't hear from any men though, hmmmm....
My next question is about company cooking? I can specifically remember a few disasters I have experienced in preparing food for guests:
I had a group of ladies I didn't know that well in for a business luncheon. Our main course was to be Taco salad. I had the big bowl of salad on the counter and was preparing the meat mixture. Shelley was little and was sitting on the counter next to the salad bowl. In front of all the women, the bowl fell on the floor and salad flew everywhere. They all said, "Oh, wash it off, and we'll eat it anyway!" Which we had to do as it was all we had.
A few years ago I had my neighborhood ladies in for dessert after our Christmas eat-out. I had made a frozen pie of some sort. Again, in front of everyone, the glass pie pan slipped out of my hands and crashed to the floor, shattering glass everywhere. The frozen oreo crust and ice cream pie stayed intact, and they all thought it would be fine to eat it. Thankfully, this time I had a couple of other choices prepared, and I did not take the chance of serving any glass with my dessert.
Years ago, in the big house in Gridley, I hosted my family for some holiday meal. I remember I was proud of myself that I had fried chicken that turned out pretty good. Mashed potatoes, etc. But when I passed the food, they all took chicken, then the mashed potatoes, and when I came back in with the next item, I saw they had all made a little scoop out of their mashed potatoes all ready for the gravy...Gravy?? I never once thought of it.
I know I have tons more...but what are some of your entertaining disasters??
17 comments:
How about this past Saturday at our family Thanksgiving when I was supposed to bring the rolls. I just bought some at the store and put them in the oven to heat them a little. I got so distracted by the football game on the radio that I forgot about the rolls until we smelled them burning. We had to cut the bottoms off of all of them.
So Mom made a delicious meal of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and sweet potatoes; Malissa brought a fancy salad and home-made frosted sugar cookies; and Jamie (who was also catering a 700-person reception that week-end) brought green beans, corn, and cookies. I brought store-bought rolls with no bottoms.
A couple of years ago, our whole family went for a weeks vacation along the ocean by Charleston, SC. One of the deals was that grandpa would fix breakfast every day. One of the days was July 25, our wedding aniversary. I requested that the whole family eat breatfast at the same time and I would prepare pancakes. We were sitting at two huge tables, with the kids at one and the adults at the other When every one was ready, following a prayer, I had a huge platter of pancakes for the kids table. On the way over, in the middle of this huge room, the platter slipped out of my hand and the dish with all the pancakes splattered on the floor. Janice yelled, 5 second rule, so we scrambled picking them up and putting them back on the platter. Kids were so stunned, they just laughed and went on eating them. Grandpa, however was very embarrased.
In case of any confusion -- the previous comment is from Jerry. His pancakes were delicious even after being on the floor for no more than 5 seconds.
As a new bride, we had some guests over for dinner and my menu included jello in a ring-mold. When I went to take it out of the mold (while the guests were in the other room) I couldn't get it out. So I held it upside down in the sink and ran hot water on it. The whole jello fell into the sink and broke into a thousand pieces - I quickly pushed it down the garbage disposal and noone knew the difference! To this day I can't get jello out of a mold successfully.
Another time we were getting ready for a Thanksgiving dinner at our house in Washburn (many years ago). I had the turkey drippings setting on the stove to make into gravy. Jerry cleaned up the kitchen while I did something else. When I came back to make the gravy - the pot had been emptied into the garbage. hmmm - don't remember how mad I got, but I'm generally pretty easy-going!!
We hosted Rotating Potluck at our house. For those of you unfamiliar with this, it is where several couples from church come for a potluck meal, and it is usually people you don't normally have over, so I am usually a little "rattled" to begin with. Well, everyone was seated at the table ready to pray, and Tim was carrying a platter with the chicken breasts down the stairs to the basement where we were seated, when the glass platter broke and split right down the middle and the chicken breasts all tumbled down the steps. Gravy splashed all over the walls. I felt a rush of panic go straight to my head. One of the ladies jumped up from the table and the 3 of us cleaned up the mess as quickly as possible. Tim and I scraped off the chicken pieces and put them on a new platter. Fortunately this was right after Easter, and I had enough pieces of leftover ham to put on the platter also. It went into the microwave and we passed it around. Everyone was kind enough to take some of the chicken anyway. I couldn't sleep for about 3 nights after that, I was so shook up!
Cathy
I was hosting potluck earlier this year. I had switched with someone because I wanted to get it done before I got too big with the twins. Low and behold, I was put on partial bedrest the week before! My wonderful mother came and cleaned my whole house and even made the meat for me. I couldn't have done it without you, Mom!
Cathy gets the prize so far -- I laughed outloud!
Mike always likes to have porcupine meatballs for his birthday dinner - I'd never heard of them, but they are meatballs with rice in them, and his mother used to make them for him when he was a kid. One year we had people here to celebrate and I made them. They looked done to me even though they hadn't cooked as long as the recipe specified, so I served them. Well, the meat may have been reasonably well browned, but the rice was not soft yet. It was like eating meatballs with little barbs in them.
Jen should tell about her chili she made in Mexico. Staci should tell about the fudge recipe from Mom - "now be sure you don't stir it!"
Cathy
While living in Morton I invited some "seasoned" couples for lunch after church. I hadn't entertained much and was quite nervous especially since Shirley Hauter was there. Like Shelley, I forgot about the rolls and ended up with very black bottomed rolls. I was so embarrassed and got ready to throw them out when Shirley said, "Absolutely not! I've done this lots of times." She then grabbed a knife and cut off the bottoms, and I served them. Ever since then I'm not afraid to serve less than perfect food because if rolls with the bottoms cut off are good enough for Shirley then it's good enough for me.
Another time I invited my school administrator and his wife for lunch after church. I don't remember what I served, but I know he missed the next three days of school with stomach issues. The first thing on Thursday he came to my room to let me know it wasn't my cooking!!!
NogBlog, I'm glad you're finding out about this after you ate lunch at my house after church last summer!!!
I remember one Christmas when I had an oven full of food to bake and my poor old oven quit! Mother was in the nursing home in Peoria and nobody was living in her house. I took the turkey & potatoes up to her house to bake and everything got done in time. I still have that poor old oven so this could happen again at any time. Since Ada and Charity and Joan live close by, I'm not too worried. I've had other mishaps also that were quite embarrassing---but the guests were very kind.
Speaking of Christmas, one year we had a lamp catch on fire, and our live Christmas tree turned out to be very alive when little black bugs hatched and were crawling all over the curtains in the living room.
eeewww - bugs on the curtain, Carol? Gross. But speaking of Christmas fires: One Christmas Eve we were in the living room of our Minonk house waiting for the Stevigs to come for dinner. I thought I smelled smoke and checked all the food but nothing was burning.
I finally went downstairs where I had a lit candle and wreath. Sure enough, the candle had burned down and had started a small fire on the wreath. I yelled upstairs for somebody to get a rug to put out the fire. Jerry grabbed a throw-rug, ran down, threw it over the candle and carried it halfway upstairs and threw it out the front door. About that time our company came - and we about froze for awhile as we had to leave all the doors and some windows open to get the smoke out.
BUT . . . to this day, if my kids see me begin to get "rattled" about something, they start yelling "get a rug, hey somebody, get a rug"!! OR they might say "where's the scissors", but that's another story!
Sorry I changed the topic from food disasters to another disaster.
Well, that's OK. Recently, I was hosting Apples of Gold at my house, where some of us "older ones" were mentoring some of the younger women in cooking, hospitality, etc. Just before they came, I decided to do a quick once-over on my hardwood floors and I mopped them quickly with some cleaner...went to get dressed...and came out to a DISASTER! My beautiful hardwood floor was covered with a thick white coating, going in swirls like mop marks. I was devastated and worried I had ruined my floors. There was nothing I could do, everybody showed up, and the floor just looked scary. After the cooking class, the girls went to the basement for Bible Study and a few of us got down on our hands and knees and tried to scrub off this thick film, but it didn't come off easy. I spent the next week working hard to clean the floor. It does now look nice again, but what an embarrassing nightmare. Almost as bad as the time I tried to scrub a carpet stain with a clorox mixture...that one cost me a lot of money!
Mom, Don't forget the potluck "parsley potatoes"
Oh, I had forgotten about the chili! My friend Emily and I were volunteering at our mission in Mexico. Jan (the minister's wife) was back in the States, and it was up to us to make lunch every day. We decided to make some chili and asked the guys to pick up some beans at the market that morning. They came back with dried beans, which we had never seen before!
We got out the Spanish/English dictionary and translated the directions--to soak overnight! We put the beans in boiling water and boiled for 3 hours, but they were still a little crunchy when we served the meal! They guys were good sports, though, and never complained (though Emily and I laughed through the whole meal.)
Apparently none of us are perfect!!
My biggest flop was for Lynn's surprise 65th birthday party here at our house. My husband likes angel food cake so I was going to bake him one. I had been told you can't mess up with the cake mix. I think the directions were followed properly, but in the mixer the batter kept expanding and flowed over the side of the bowl; so I put it into the angel food pan and baked it but the spilling over the sides continued and angel food cake ended being one inch tall. It was good for a laugh by all the guests. Although this was a no gift party, one guest brought him 65 marbles in case he had lost any. More kindly was the gift of 65 chocolate candy kisses.
The parsley potatoes Eric referred to was another potluck incident, where it was my turn to take potatoes. I had made a nice hot dish and Dave was carrying them in a basket into Byron Stoller's house. Unfortunately, the handle of the basket broke and the potatoes landed completely upside down in the grass. The men scooped them up and called them "parsley potatoes." The women took the safer route and cooked up some instant rice. Lesson: Never carry a basket by the handles alone, always keep one hand on the bottom of the basket!
This embarrassment was not while entertaining exactly, but last week I decided to bake apple muffins and pumpkin choc. chip muffins for the residents in our Alzheimer's Unit at the Peoria Home during my volunteer time. I assembled the dry ingredients at home and took the eggs, milk, butter, apples, pumpkin, etc along to add to the batter during my demonstration in front of 5-6 female residents. We were having a great time together and I was showing them some of the neat utensils such as a silicone spatula, muffin scoop, etc. and they commented how they were enjoying it and wanted some of the tips I gave them to use when they baked next time for their family. One lady even asked for the recipe and I remember thinking, "these poor things, they'll not be doing any baking anymore." Everything was going smoothly and the muffins were in the oven producing the usual good aroma. The ladies kept asking if they were ready to eat yet. As I looked at them in the oven, I realized I noticed the muffins looked strange and then realized they weren't raising one bit. Then it dawned on me that I forgot the baking powder...the poor muffins were pitifully "heavy" and just gross. The only solace I had was that every one of those ladies would forget about them in a very short time, but I was very embarrassed in front of the staff that I was indeed the "forgetful" one!
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