And now for something different
Jun. 13th, 2008 01:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisseI have said that cookery is my art. It becomes an art through belief in yourself and experimentation. There's a certain fearlessness required.
That means you will make bad food. If you use good ingredients and pay attention to cooking time, it probably won't be terrible or inedible. But at some point you're going to make a meal where you take a bite and look at your fork and say, "what hath I wrought?"
This is fine. It will happen less and less as you learn just why soy sauce and vanilla aren't usually used in the same dish. A new stove will probably bring a two week streak of over, under, or oddly cooked food, but, once you adapt to each other, chances are it won't happen again.
There will be the occasional recipe that reads well but tastes wrong. Toss the recipe or adapt it. With experience your mistakes will be fewer and fewer.
What does one do about the ego hit, though? How does a person who has just burned water recover?
I watch "Semi-Homemade With Sandra Lee" on the Food Network.
I don't usually make fun of the afflicted; it's a low form of humor. But this woman is trying to give advice on cooking and clearly has no idea what she's doing.
There is comfort in the idea that no matter how bad my meal accidentally turned out, it's no where near what Sandra Lee has done on purpose. Seriously, I think one of her recipes involving frozen meatballs contravenes the Geneva Convention.
I have laughed harder at her show than at most comedies. Over at TWoP, if you go to the early days of the thread called "Open Letter to Sandra Lee" you can find the restraining order I took out on behalf of the French government for creating a souffle with no eggs. Her "French Pastry" dessert began with pound cake and instant custard mix.
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gileswench can testify to the Christmas episode that I made her watch and the scary, scary cocktails.
As a matter of fact, Sandra Lee's presentations make me feel better about mine. Mine are basic, but they're about the food. Hers are fancy, themed, and over the top.
An example: In the aforementioned Christmas episode, she prepares a snowball cocktail. It uses blue brandy, which I understand as the shadows on snow have a distinctly bluish cast. However, the blue brandy isn't diluted much giving it a definite Tidy Bowl hue. She pours it in a glass rimmed with flaked coconut giving the overall drink a disconcerting aura of flecks of toilet paper around the bowl.
edited to add: I found the recipe at Food Network and there's a picture!
No one can top that.
That means you will make bad food. If you use good ingredients and pay attention to cooking time, it probably won't be terrible or inedible. But at some point you're going to make a meal where you take a bite and look at your fork and say, "what hath I wrought?"
This is fine. It will happen less and less as you learn just why soy sauce and vanilla aren't usually used in the same dish. A new stove will probably bring a two week streak of over, under, or oddly cooked food, but, once you adapt to each other, chances are it won't happen again.
There will be the occasional recipe that reads well but tastes wrong. Toss the recipe or adapt it. With experience your mistakes will be fewer and fewer.
What does one do about the ego hit, though? How does a person who has just burned water recover?
I watch "Semi-Homemade With Sandra Lee" on the Food Network.
I don't usually make fun of the afflicted; it's a low form of humor. But this woman is trying to give advice on cooking and clearly has no idea what she's doing.
There is comfort in the idea that no matter how bad my meal accidentally turned out, it's no where near what Sandra Lee has done on purpose. Seriously, I think one of her recipes involving frozen meatballs contravenes the Geneva Convention.
I have laughed harder at her show than at most comedies. Over at TWoP, if you go to the early days of the thread called "Open Letter to Sandra Lee" you can find the restraining order I took out on behalf of the French government for creating a souffle with no eggs. Her "French Pastry" dessert began with pound cake and instant custard mix.
gileswench can testify to the Christmas episode that I made her watch and the scary, scary cocktails.As a matter of fact, Sandra Lee's presentations make me feel better about mine. Mine are basic, but they're about the food. Hers are fancy, themed, and over the top.
An example: In the aforementioned Christmas episode, she prepares a snowball cocktail. It uses blue brandy, which I understand as the shadows on snow have a distinctly bluish cast. However, the blue brandy isn't diluted much giving it a definite Tidy Bowl hue. She pours it in a glass rimmed with flaked coconut giving the overall drink a disconcerting aura of flecks of toilet paper around the bowl.
edited to add: I found the recipe at Food Network and there's a picture!
No one can top that.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-13 08:00 pm (UTC)You bitch. I had managed to forget a couple of those atrocities (side note: EVERY ONE of her recipes involving frozen meatballs contravenes the Geneva Convention...not to mention nine-tenths of the rest of her recipes. The rest are merely godawful), but no, you had to remind me of them!
In retaliation, may I remind you of the fact that the Tidy Bowl cocktail appeared in the same episode as the Dipsomaniac's Chritsmas tree entirely decked out in barware with a giant martini glass on the top? Oh, yes, I'm bringing out the big guns here. Speaking of which, remember the children's tea party where she was serving half a cup of port to each child over ice cream? And there was more booze in several other dishes, too. Imagine, if you will, holding a children's party and then trying to explain to the parents why, precisely, it was that they needed to be poured into cabs in order to get safely home.
Sandra Lee makes the Baby Jesus weep profusely into his Corn Flakes.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-16 04:53 pm (UTC)I'm sorry, Twistie.
I had forgotten the kids tea party that involved alcohol. Even I have some shame.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-13 11:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-16 04:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-14 04:34 am (UTC)One online site refers to her food as edible hate crime.
I can't imagine how someone would decide all those things would taste good together. And then let her present it on tv. *shudder*
no subject
Date: 2008-06-16 04:52 pm (UTC)My favorite though is the Holiday Cocktail Party. Which in addition to the Tidy Bowl cocktail includes a candy cane cocktail made exclusively with alcoholic beverages, no mixers sully it, and a Gingerbread martini that has to be seen to be believed.