Time to confess: What are you afraid to cook? Is it live lobsters with their creepy swimmerettes, or whipped cream that you're sure won't get fluffy? And how about those scary egg whites?
For Halloween, I've been looking for the really scary foods, the ones that people are afraid to tackle. So far, I've heard from a woman who claims she has a mysterious non-gelling affect on all gelatins. Her husband can make Jell-O, but she can't.
Send your scary food stories to me at kpurvis@charlotteobserver.com.
As for myself, when we cooks gather around the campfire, I hold a flashlight up to my face and tell a story I call "Night of the Living Lobster":
Once upon a time, I tried to kill a lobster the way the cookbooks always say to do it, by plunging the point of a knife straight down between the head and body.
What the cookbooks don't tell you is that the lobster may be dead, but the swimmerettes, those little legs and flippers, don't stop moving. For a very long time. Even when you're hurrying the trash bag of discarded lobster parts out to the trash can: Twitch-twitch, twitch-twitch, twitch-twitch.
This girl will stick to steaming from now on.
Monday, October 12, 2009
What are you afraid to cook?
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5 comments:
I won't cook a whole fish. Having those eye stare back at me freaks me out!
Eeeeeeeeewwwwwwww!!!!
My mother used to make meringues, just tablespoon blobs of egg whites slow-cooked in a low oven. We kids LOVED it. I made it once, and it was easy. Then I saw a recipe for a meringue box where you take square pieces of meringue and "glue" them together with something like icing. An edible box. If meringue is easy, a meringue box should be easy, but I thought that this was something that should-be-easy-but-isn't. So I never made meringue again.
When it comes to biscuits, I'm a FAIL. Which is frustrating to me because I can usually work out a recipe when I set my mind to it: barbecue (won some awards), brunswick stew, pizza dough and sauce as good as takeout...
But I just can't seem to get the biscuit thing. And I've tried all the tips and recipes that I can find. Still searching for that golden brown on the outside and fluffy on the inside cathaed biscuit.
Seems crazy (and embarrassing) with all the cooking I do, but I've never had the guts to bake anything with yeast. Biscuits, quick breads, waffles, etc., but the thought of my yeast failing to proof give me the heebie-jeebies. Now that I've confessed, though, maybe I could confront my fear with a simple pizza crust? Or is there such a thing?
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