My Life, in a Nutshell

Or to put it simply, "Why I Could Never Be the NEXT FOOD NETWORK STAR..."

When I was very young my father crowned me with the nickname "Murphy", as in "Murphy's Law": Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. I was, to put it mildly, "accident prone". Actually, accidents followed me around like dark shadows, turning up when I'd least expect them, ruining perfectly good days.

When I was three I was up at my cottage and my brother had broken a juice glass on the floor of the kitchen. My mother cleaned up all of it (she thought) but my foot somehow managed to find the one piece she had missed. It embedded itself into my foot and I ended up in the emergency room a few days later waiting to have it removed (for which I received a pretty pink balloon...my brother was jealous).

At the ripe old age of 4 my brother (still jealous) sat me down on the kitchen floor and gave me a horrific hair cut. To this day I fear haircuts and anyone bearing scissors in the kitchen.

When I was six I tugged on the kitchen door at the cottage and the glass window fell out of it, nearly slicing off my right thumb. No emergency room this time, just a big bowl of hydrogen peroxide and a clean dish towel for a bandage. I have nerve damage in that hand and am still upset I never got a pretty pink balloon to make my brother jealous. Entering that kitchen still gives me the heebee-geebies.

At the age of eight my brother (jealous much?) whirled me around the grocery store in a shopping cart and tipped it over (with me still in it). Now I become somewhat traumatized when I walk through the doors of any large grocery store...it makes shopping a nuisance to say the least.

At 19 a good friend cooked me dinner but the chicken was slightly undercooked and I ended up sick in bed for over a week...minus one good friend. To this day I am a bit paranoid when it comes to cooking chicken.

When I was 27 I was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder. A very similar disorder is caused by e. coli so I am a bit overly cautious when I cook ground beef...to the point of burning it sometimes.

Recently I wanted to make myself a cup of tea. I turned the stove on, walked out of the kitchen and made a telephone call. I returned to my kitchen to find the stove on fire and the room filled with thick grey smoke. I had turned on the wrong burner, on top of which was an old tea towel. I think you can guess the result...the house still smells funny to me and I have left the tea-making to S.

So those are my flaws (a few of them anyway), do with them what you will. But if you're going to think ill of me for them perhaps you should examine your own past in your own kitchen(s). For your effort I will award one The Next Food Network Star prize package to the most disastrous (but believable) kitchen horror story you can come up with.

Please send me an email before June 2nd with your tragic story and I will choose the best (worst) and post it on Tuesday June 3rd. The prize package, courtesy of The Next Food Network Star includes the following:

1. Cookbook - "Bobby Flay's Grill It!"
2. Food Network Keychain
3. Next Food Network Star Poster
4. Next Food Network Star Postcard
5. Next Food Network Star T-shirt

Filed under:   Family   Memories   Misc. Events

Comments:
Note: Adding comments is termporarily disabled as we rebuild the system...

Jun 1, 2008:	Nabeela (www.trialsnerror.blogspot.com) whoa, Holly deserves the prize! Let me go through my kitchen disasters too though :) 1) I was oncle cleaning out my freezer while simultaneously heating rice in the microwave in a pretty(very pretty, actually) glass bowl. After the microwave beeped, I lifted the glass bowl to take to the table. And BAM! the glass bowl exploded in my hands. Apparently my hands were too cold from the freezer and the bowl was too hot....duh! I don't even wanna talk about the sticky rice-carpet situation that happpened later.....sigh. 2. Now, this one is definitely not my fault. I had recently bought a pretty serving plate shaped like a fish from sur la table and was serving fish in it for the fisrt time. While the fish was waiting in its plate at the table, I was chopping up some salsa to go with it and suddenly I heard a loud CRACK. It was the plate. It broke. Unexplicably! I mean, seriously, no one was near it...the fish wasn't too hot either. But the plate broke....before it's first appearance too :( 3. This one is embarassing and it has to do with tea. I put a kettle of water on my electric stove and went upstairs to work on my last problem from the final exam. I got so engrossed in the problem that I forgot about the kettle and only remembered it 2 hours later!! As soon as I stepped out onto the stairs, I could smell this weird and very strong funky smell. Turns out the kettle had not only boiled dry but had stuck to the electric coils and buring/glowing faint red at the bottom! I had to wait for a few hours before I even tried dislodging it. Phew, I think that's enough embarassment for today :)
Jun 1, 2008:	Hanaboomom (http://ridinginahandbasket.blogspot.com) Oh, I'm always having mishaps in the kitchen...I nick myself while cutting veggies, or burn myself when I go to grab something, forgetting that it's hot. I've been known to forget a crucial ingredient every now and then (baking soda, for instance), or to get sidetracked and end up burning something. But my biggest mishap happened quite a number of years ago when I was still single. I had been out on a particularly dud first date with someone and when I came back to my apartment I just wanted to relax with a glass of wine. As I was about to reach for a glass, I noticed a used glass by the sink and thought to myself that I really ought to just clean that one and reuse it. So I washed it up, but as I dried the glass the stem suddenly snapped and I slipped, accidentally digging the broken stem into the base of the thumb of my left hand. A cab ride to the hospital and about 5 hours of sitting in Emerg later, I went home with about 5 or 6 stitches. And I never did get to have my nice relaxing glass of wine that night.
May 30, 2008:	Holly (http://phemomenon.blogspot.com) What great stories - and I too agree your brother MUST have been jealous! I have so many stories I could share, but I'll just concentrate on this past winter. I have been in quarantine with our preemie son since his birth (2 months early) last October (until abou 1 week ago). Anyway, baking has been my salvation this winter - but sleep deprivation and baking don't mix very well. I usually end up doing something stupid, or that I just know isn't going to end well... and then doing it anyway. So, my story is all about the week before Christmas - and I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I'm not exaggerating here. First I cut two fingers by not paying attention while cutting up tomatoes, then I put a hot from the oven pyrex pie plate into the sink and started to run not hot enough water over it - it exploded, literally (thank goodness it mostly stayed in the sink). Then, sticking with the exploding glass theme, on Christmas morning I had forgotten to chill a bottle of sparkling cider we were given, so I put it in the freezer and promised myself I would remember it was there... but I didn't. It exploded and left frozen, sticky slushy cider and green glass shards all over the freezer (still cleaning up after that one). Finally, also Christmas morning, I had decided to make a new sticky bun recipe. It seemed too big for it's pan, but I decided it would be alright. Well, then I forgot to put a sheet pan under it to catch any drips. Well, the drips became flat out overflow - and since I have a gas oven and burnt sugar is flammable - I set the oven on fire. I am still trying to clean this mess up as well - and I even had to unscrew and remove the floor of the oven - which I got to spend the rest of Christmas day trying to clean. (Oh, and I still haven't been able to get the oven floor screwed back in correctly either. It is being held in place with my heavy pizza stone. I should probably stay out of the kitchen, but I try not to let it get me down!
May 30, 2008:	Bellini Valli (morethanburnttoast.blogspot.com) I wouldn't say that I am accident prone but there have been a few cooking disasters in my world. My mom was one of these ladies who just thought it was easier to do things herself when in the kitchen or doing housework, etc. My cooking skills I learned from my Home Econonmics teacher starting in Grade 6 for the most part. When I moved into my first apartment at 19 I invited my sister and her boyfriend for dinner. I served canned potatoes, canned carrots and meat pies already pre-made and remember saying, "How good is this", and believing it. I must say I have come a long way since then. When we lived in Calgary and were newly married and living on love and not wealth we had invited 10 people over for Thanksgiving dinner. I usually spend 2 days cooking up a storm to lessen the work on the actual day. I went to our local butcher and purchased an organic turkey with the largest, plumpest breasts I could find. I left the turkey on the counter since she was still slightly frozen and peeled out the door with zeal to get the last minute groceries I needed to prepare my feast. My first dinner party!!!When I came home one breast of turkey was almost entirely gone. Our adorable and soon to be reprommanded or perhaps buried little cat had been busy and hungry. I stuffed the hole with stuffing and cooked up the turkey with our guests none the wiser...and just didn't serve anything from that side. I still remember that day and the feeling of shock every Thanksgiving:D A bottle of wine always helps...wink...wink...
May 29, 2008:	bunny (http://wwwbunnysovencom.blogspot.com/) well girl it's a wonder you step into the kitchen at all with all of the mishaps that have happened to you! my little story is not about anything actualy bad that happened in our kitchen just funny. my mom and dad had 8 kids, imagine cooking for 10 people everyday! my mom would make fudge and we kids would get the spoons out and get a "spoonful" of fudge. this didn't seem the least bit odd to us because that's the way mom made it and we didn't know any better. i was out of the house and married till i realized that's not your typical fudge. when my sisters and i bring the fudge memory up to my mom who will be 74 in june she laughs uncontrollably. nobody has been scared for life because of it,but everytime i make fudge i think of it. just a warm fussy i wanted to share.