COOKING A MERGANSER (duck)

Did you hear about the time that I made doughnuts? (I was about 20 at the time). They came out burnt on the outside, and runny on the inside.

At about the same time of my life, I was married to my first husband, who was a real (expletive deleted). I once made a steak for him in the oven broiler. The steak caught fire, and I was terrified, but he insisted that the meat "was not done enough"!

One year after Beethoven our beagle **** on the carpet one too many times, I undercooked him and forget to take his collar off. When I served the kids cried, I was cut off by squinney for a month, and I ended up having to drop a bundle of money on 13 people for Thanksgiving out.

Gracie, our smaller blue tick beagle was delighted though, and ate around the collar.

I have one. I am perhaps the worst cook in the world. The culinary arts are esoteric to me. One day, on a whim, I decided to attempt to cook eggs. I put the pan on the stove and turned the heat to "high". Then I put about a half a stick of butter in the pan and watched in fascination as it began to melt. I spread the butter around with a paper towel and at that moment I heard a car door slam outside. I strode to the front door to see my mailman standing there with a package.

We talked briefly, exchanged pleasantries, and I returned to the task at hand. On my way back to the kitchen the smoke alarm went off.

I picked up the pace. Reaching the kitchen I found the entire room consumed by smoke. I quickly grabbed the pan, raced to the sink, and turned the water on. Major mistake. A huge fireball erupted and the curtains behind the sink went up in flames.

Grabbing the curtains and pulling them from the wall I tossed them on the floor and stomped on them until the fire was out.

I surveyed the carnage and held my hands to my ears to stifle the noise from the smoke alarm.

Eventually the noise subsided, I cleaned up the mess and opted for toaster waffles for breakfast.

Those I can handle.

Hmm...call me crazy, but to me, there is no such thing as a cooking disaster, just a temporary delay. I have had a poodle eat a salmon tail, and a springer spaniel grab a pan fried piece of chicken though.

cav My friends 'delay' involved insurance claims adjuster and many meals out before his wife even let him boil water . As I recall, the stove was expensive and looked like the front end of a HUMMER. AS a professional chef, You learn lessons and adjust your sauces, people like me, we have stories to tell our grandchildren.

Phoenix, you got rid of that piece of meat no? (I dont mean the steak)

Bear- if I ever meet you in a bar , I want you on my side no ****.

Gustave- So far you have demonstrated the shortest attention span of those posting. You are gonna be tough to beat.

Okay, I will admit that while I was an apprentice, I made 20 litres of mayo with deep fry oil.

Thanks, farmerman. I feel good about my chances in this competition.

cav, you could have added about 5 pounds of sugar and then called it TIM HORTONS DONUT CREME FILLING

gus, no furher demos are required. The Academy has taken your response under consideration.

I'm from a large family and at 10 years old I was allowed to fix the family a simple meal all by myself. I decided to make grilled cheese sandwiches for all (seen Mom do it before). I didn't know I was supposed to use margarine on the bread so I spread Crisco shortening on all the bread instead. They fried up nice and crispy, not even burnt and they tasted...yuk! No one said a word, but I could read the looks on their faces.

Mom never made pies, she didn't like to bother with the pastry. It was a treat when she bought one.

In junior high, in home-ec class I finally learned how to turn a crust.
I went home, picked a bucket of apples off the neighbours tree and began to prepare the ingredients.
I made the best looking pie I had ever seen. The test taste proved differently though, the crust was bright yellow and saltier than a canned ham and the instead of cinnamon I had used paprika, so the concoction blew steam out of the families ears.
Now my kids think it's a big treat when I buy a pie.
Ceili

When I was young & newly married we lived in the funky top floor apartment of an old house. As I often did, I put a pot of navy beans on the gas burner to cook. Then, realizing it was Yoga night, I hurried out the door. We had a nice long session and were in the ending shavasana, meditating on peacefulness when suddenly those beans came back into my consciousness.

I whispered to my husband, "Did you turn off the beans?"

"What beans?"

In five seconds it was quietly determined that we needed to pick up and zoom home... didn't even bother to put on our shoes. We arrived there in record time to find the apartment nearly filled with dark yellow smoke, but no flames. We literally crawled on the floor to the kitchen where the beans were still madly cooking themselves into the base of that now totally blackened pan. We tossed the pan out the back door, opened every window that would open and counted ourselves lucky we hadn't burned the place down.


And we both lost our taste for beans.

colorbook-AHHHHH cheese sammiches grilled with crisco. See we use lard around here, gives it a ham an cheese sammich taste, lotsa artery cloggin goodness

ceili-Your creative use of ingredients for that picante pie crust has gotten the notice of one of the Academy members

piffka- beans with that special smoky flavor can be a real treat, unless the fire department is required . Do you still have that pot? Ive already boiled eggs and forgot that they were on until, when all the water is cooked away, the eggs all explode and deposit that sulfur crap all over the Kitchen, then i yell, EGGS ARE DONE, and go and watch TV

I spent over a year explaining to my wife how to prepare chips (fries to you Murricans). And she still managed to set fire to the stove.

Trouble was that I had retired to the shower when she started so instead of trying to put it out, she put a tea towel over it and rushed in to get me. I get out stark-bollocky nude (this is a very English expression) and find the tea-towel in flames as well. I chuck that on the floor where it continues to burn, while I stop the oil fire on the stove. All the time I'm jumping around with bits of me that shouldn't ever be near open flames wobbling all over the place.

And we're on the ground floor, with our kitchen in direct sight line of the main entrance. I got to make the chips for a while after that.

Ceili's pie reminded me of a morning when our power was out. I wanted to make coffee for Mr. P to take to work, so I decided to grind coffee in the old hand grinder. Unfortunately I had been grinding black pepper corns in there. I thought I whisked them all out but apparently you can never get all the pepper out of a grinder. The coffee looked like coffee and smelled like coffee, but it was very, very hot. It was quite a surprise to poor Mr.P. and his tender stomach.

Jeez, Mr. Stillwater... is that how you told her to make the chips? Scary!

Farmerman -- You asked about the pot I cooked the beans in... as a matter of fact I still have it. I scrubbed and scrubbed and soaked and scrubbed over a period of weeks. Then I gave up. The pot still has a slight imprint of beans inside and the copper outside will never shine, but it is usable. It's taken its place with the other disreputable pots and pans at the beach cabin.

I try to stick with frozen microwavable stuff, which isn't difficult if you discard the instructions and cook everything while still tightly sealed in the original package. You will never get underdone food with cold spots in the middle with this technique. When it explodes, it is done.

Hey there gustav, farmerman said that, not me. Oh look! A shiny object!

As long as you keep the heat at a constant temperature.....








you won't burn your dick off! Hardee f*ckin' ha ha!! No kidding, the burn on the floor cost us plenty when we moved.

Back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and my mom and dad were still dating, she planned to serve him up a romantic fried fish dinner. Having no idea how to actually cook a fish, she proceeded to set the kitchen on fire. When my dad arrived, the fire trucks were there, and my mom was dressed to the nines, purse in hand. "We're going out" she said.