(no subject)

rhiannonhero was talking about her forays in the kitchen. As I've stated elsewhere, I cook. Pretty well, if I do say so myself. And I've been cooking since I was 10, so nearly 32 years of practice at it.

Which is why I'm so entertained by kitchen disasters. It's been awhile since I've had one (touch wood). But my Junior year in college I knew a walking kitchen disaster: I'll call her Jane.

I first knew that Jane should not be allowed in a kitchen when, on our first day living with a British family, she showed amazement at the convoluted process that produced tea. Yes. She really didn't know that water left on a stove for long enough with the heat at maximum would boil. Apparently she'd not only missed home-ec, but basic chemistry in high school.

The wonder on her face when she came back from Germany with the magical knowledge of how to fry an egg was a particular high point. Jane insisted on making breakfast for me. When the yolk broke she didn't know what to do, so I introduced her to the further wonders of scrambling. I've never seen such pure astonishment on the face of a person over 5. A whole world opened before her.

All of which brings me to her most infamous cooking exploit. The people with whom we were staying had to go out of town for two weeks. The parents of one of them were supposed to come and look after us, but there would be a one day gap. The lady of the house asked me to make certain that Jane was fed.

Dinner was one of my oldest recipes. It was the first that I'd found for myself and cut out of a magazine. It was dead simple. Our housemother had left us frozen chicken which I thawed. When I got home from school I put it in a pot with onions and potatoes from the pantry, some carrots and mushrooms that would have gone bad by the time the family got back, a little butter, some tarragon, and a cup of sherry. Bake covered at 325 for twenty minutes per pound of meat, and you have the world's simplest and most elegant one pot meal. We used up some salad greens from the crisper, and it was dinner.

Jane was amazed. She'd been talking to me during the ten minutes of washing and peeling that it had taken me to throw everything into a pot and put it into the oven. It hadn't occured to her that I'd been cooking.

She asked me for the recipe, and I wrote it out pretty much as I did above. I did mention that you could use thyme instead of tarragon or white wine instead of sherry. Therein lay my mistake. Never give a kitchen incompetent an option.

Comes the weekend. Jane and her boyfriend are joining a large group from our class and going to Paris for the weekend. Since I prefer dental appointments to Paris (not France -- I love many cities in France, I merely dislike Paris), I went with the grandparents to their Edward IV cottage near Dorking for the weekend.

When we get back the house is freezing from having all the windows open. When we close the windows, it smells funny and we're pretty sure it's not the dog.

Jane explained it to me later. Thanks to her need to wash her hair before embarking on travel, she and her boyfriend had missed the train. To make it up to him, she offers to make him dinner on Saturday night.

It started when she got home later than she expected from shopping and had to hurry for Brad's arrival.

Thawing the chicken would take too much time. She didn't have any mushrooms and didn't see the need to peel the carrots, the potatoes, or the onions.

Then Jane noticed that she had options where the herbs were concerned. A thought sparked across her synapses: Colonel Sanders used 11 different herbs and spices.

There are several Greek recipes which call for both Oregano and Cinnamon. Usually, they do not also include Allspice and Rosemary. I shudder to think what the other seven herbs and spices were. I've blanked them from my mind.

Since she was in a hurry, she thought that raising the temperature would cook the food faster. Jane turned the oven dial to its maximum of 500. Then -- with no lid, butter, or liquid -- she put the pan in the oven and went to get ready for her date.

Jand and Brad went out for pizza. I helped her buy a new pan before the family came home.

And on Thanksgiving day, she attempted to make a noodle kugel recipe that her mother had sent her. As I was walking out the door, she called out to me, "Do you think I should boil the noodles?"

I said yes.