It must be said that living your entire life with a father that can literally fix anything, cook anything, and DO basically anything under the Tuscan sun can ruin your adult life when the time comes for you to move out into your own house. It's like Princess Fiona, living in a castle where her only worries are showing up to eating times in a timely manner, then marrying Shrek and moving to the swamp. Ouch. Probably should clear up the fact that this post isn't about relating my husband to an ogre. Because that would be rude. And hilarious.
I can cook. It can even be said that I can cook well. That is, when I decide to actually do it. Which is like once a season. I take after Daddy and am able to leave the recipe books on the shelf and just throw stuff together. Being cooped up inside, I've had the urge to stand in the kitchen for hours and hours. I like the adrenaline rush every now and then of having to watch and do multiple things in limited time frames. Thus, the reason I'm also a two-day-before-Christmas shopper. I decided to cook a red soup. I'm assuming most people call it a chicken and veggie soup, but in the sticks, the soup looks red so that's the name we gave it. Red Soup is basically corn, butterbeans, chicken, potatoes, and tomatoes thrown in a pot with a little water. Since I know how to make it by heart, I decided to cook breakfast for my sleeping husband who is currently on midnight shift and sleeps well into the morning. It's astonishing, I know, but I actually have pancake batter and bacon on hand too. So, I started in the kitchen with the plan to start the soup, cook bacon in the oven, make pancakes, and possibly use leftover potatoes to fry with leftover onions. I was pretty much thinking like the spawn of Paula Deen. Aww, Paula. Is she still alive?
I start working by heading to the cabinet for aluminum foil to line the cookie sheet for the bacon. No aluminum foil. I had taken the roll I had to school for a project. FML. I have wax paper though. And they basically serve the same purpose, right? Line the pan to keep your pans from getting dirty. I line the pan and place the bacon on it, sticking it in the oven. Meanwhile, I'm boiling the chicken in the soup pot and mixing pancake batter.
Now, it's time to cut potatoes. I use half the bag for dicing for the soup. The other half is for slicing for fried potatoes and onions. I wash and peel them in the sink, but I leave the peelings there because I don't want to use the garbage disposal while Mike's sleeping. I know the hand techniques to cut the potatoes, as I've watched Daddy hundreds of times doing them. I just never paid attention to what type of knife to use...I started out with a paring knife. After basically pulling a muscle in my right bicep, I found another knife that is serrated. But it ends up tearing stuff apart like I'm cutting a steak up. So I pull out the big guns, the seven inch fancy-smancy one I have the back of my "Wedding Stuff I'll Never Use" cabinet. I'm positive I cut the bamboo board I was working on in half, but it got the job done.
I take the chicken out and shred it. I add it back to the pot with the other vegetables. I pour the batter onto my griddle to make pancakes. I turn back for the potatoes. OMG. They are starting to turn pink! I throw the slices into the pot. I set up the pan with oil to start frying the diced potatoes and onions. I turn back to get the slices but they aren't there! It's only pink-tinted dices! What the hell! Are potatoes cousins to bananas? I mean, really. And I think I'm a little jealous. I lay out in the sun for days and can't catch a tan yet these bastards have been out 15 minutes and have more color on their bodies than I do. So the soup will just have to have slices and we'll just have to eat dicey potatoes and onions. Ugh. I'm starting to sweat a little.
I settle the potatoes and onions and flip the pancakes which now have turned black on one side, gooey on the other. Then I smell it. Smoke. Son of a...the bacon! I throw on my oven mits and open the over door. I gag on the rush of smoke that pours out into the kitchen. I grab the pan but I can't move it because it's filled with grease. The wax paper has also wrapped itself around the bacon. Way to go, foil's less than mediocre sibling.
I can't pour the grease down the drain because the sink is full of potato skins. I stick the pan back into the oven, turn on the disposal, silently apologizing to my snoozing spouse who has no idea the chaos that is happening on the other side of the closed bedroom door. I start to shove the peeling down the drain with a wooden stick that I'm pretty sure the Pampered Chef lady who sold it to me said not to do when all of a sudden, the peelings and water start gurgling back up to me! The disposal starts to hum which directs my attention over to the stove where I have two black as Mickey's ears pancakes on the griddle and grease shooting up out of the potato pan. I want to cry.
One hand almost down the drain, one hand reaching across to turn the stove off. Just off. All of it. I spill some pancake batter all over the front of my shirt. I turn the disposal off and now have an almost-over flowing sink full of...yuck. I slide down to the floor and dramatically growl, putting my head in my hands on my knees. That's when I hear it. The turning of the bedroom door. Mike emerges. And says, "What's for breakfast?"
The moral of the story is this: people who are overly cocky will mess things up. Just because I'm my father's daughter, does not mean I have it 'going on' like he does. I'm also my mother's daughter and we like to prioritize. So next time, I will cook one thing at a time. Nice and calmly.
I pick myself off the floor, I look around at the kitchen. The oven door still has smoke rolling out of it. The griddle is steaming with two black blobs on it. The potatoes and onions look filmy because the oil is settling. Pancake batter is everywhere. The sink is. Just. Disgusting. The bacon is wrapped snuggly around the wax paper that is also wrapped snuggly around the pan and I'm pretty sure I'm just gonna toss that right out into the snow and buy a new one instead of cleaning it. And God knows, I don't even take the lid off the soup pot.
I do the only thing I have left to do. I holler to the living room, "What do you want from Bojangles?" while simultaneously dialing my Daddy.
