What was your worst kitchen accident? My worst kitchen accident happened in my mid 20s – baking pecan pie for the annual family gathering. Everyone in my family was assigned to bring their specialty to Thanksgiving dinner at Mom and Dad’s house, and my specialty was pecan pie.
I look forward to making pecan pie, and I only do it once a year. Pecan pie is limited to Thanksgiving time, in the season when pecans are being harvested and we aren’t counting calories. I follow the exact recipe on the back of the Karo corn syrup bottle and I used to pride myself on my home-made crust – which my Grandma raved over how light and flaky it was (of course, she taught me, sooooo……)
This one particular night before Thanksgiving, after working a long shift all day, I picked up the ingredients from the store and made my way home. After dinner, I prepared the crust, mixed up the filling and I loaded my pie shell with said filling. It was getting late, and I was tired….. but all I had left to do was stay up another hour until the pie was finished baking.
Now, If you have made pecan pie yourself, you will know that the filling is pure sticky liquid (sugar, Karo syrup, eggs and vanilla) with pecans floating on the top. The liquid pie is placed on a cookie sheet, then both are placed in the preheated oven. The cookie sheet catches any drips from the pie that might happen during the cooking process, and it also helps to remove a hot pie safely once it’s done cooking. Pro tip (and ultimate irony): I cover my cookie sheet with aluminum foil to make cleanup a breeze.
As I was lowering my liquid pie into the oven, it suddenly slid forward on the aluminum-foil covered cookie sheet until it hit the edge – and before I could stop it – the entire contents of liquid pie poured out into my preheated oven. What a mess!! The syrupy, sugary filling immediately started to hiss and burn on the bottom of the hot oven, the grills were covered with sticky goo and pecans. The liquid syrup poured into the bottom vents of the oven (where does that go?) and smoke began billowing into the kitchen.
I don’t exactly remember what happened after. I think there was some crying….
I do remember, my darling husband Jim came to my rescue and did most of the cleanup and none of the crying.
Nothing was salvaged. The stores were closed for Thanksgiving Day (remember when they did that?) so no pecan pie for Thanksgiving that year. All in all, a distant memory and a lesson learned. Now it’s time to make another pecan pie for this year, WISH ME LUCK! And…….HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
What was YOUR worst cooking disaster? Share in the comment section below:
It is now almost the end of October! Fall is in progress; it’s finally cooling down and the leaves are beginning to turn. By the time I write next month’s blog for November, Halloween will have come and gone, Thanksgiving will have come and gone, and a hotly contested election will have come and gone.
That is a LOT of anticipation….and we won’t know how it will all turn out until my next blog.
I suppose I can predict what will happen on Halloween: some folks will spend a LOT of money on cheesy Halloween decorations – and kids will eat a lot of candy. Those things just happen naturally these days without a lot of thought.
I suppose I can also predict what will happen this Thanksgiving: people will eat.
But…. I cannot possibly predict or imagine what the election will bring! Just be sure you VOTE!
No matter what happens, be safe, be happy and we will check in with you at the end of November.
It was 7:30am a few weeks ago when I was jolted awake by an ear-piercing, hi pitched noise. I covered my ears and took a moment to remember where I was (a hotel in Pennsylvania) and what had awakened me (the fire alarm)
In the next moments I looked at the time (7:30) I looked at Jim (already up and getting dressed.) Next, I visualized our escape route. I quickly dressed (not easy to do with your fingers in your ears) then we checked our door before opening it (the door was not hot) and dutifully made our way outside (easy, we were on the 1st floor). I smelled smoke…..it smelled like burnt toast.
The procedure in any building is to evacuate when you hear the fire alarm. We know the drill; we have practiced the drill in many places across the country and twice at sea in Alaska. You must evacuate – they will go room-to-room and get everybody out until the fire department arrives. In this case, going outside was the best and only way to escape the painful shrieking of the alarm.
During evacuation, so many thoughts very quickly go through my mind: What do I need? Where do I go? What do I bring? What did I leave behind? On a ship in Alaska, I wonder how cold the water is. If I end up in the ocean, my life preserver will only save me until hypothermia takes over. The time it takes to evacuate is the time I have to think about my situation. Even as I am in the process of taking action, I have those very same moments to contemplate the end of my life and how I might die.
In every situation, when we finally get the “all clear” from the fire department I feel relief. I also feel irritated by the rude awakening, and I also feel more than a little bit silly for letting something like the smell of burnt toast cause me to consider my untimely demise. All in all, I am just plain grateful to live another day.
HERE IS A BREAKDOWN OF ALARMS AND CAUSES IN MY 20-PLUS YEARS OF TRAVELING:
Alaska Cruise ship FIRE ALARM! CAUSE: Incinerator fire (aren’t fires supposed to be in incinerators?)
Midwest hotel TORNADO SIREN! CAUSE: No tornado, but we made a lot of friends in the stairwell.
Symphony Christmas Concert FIRE ALARM! CAUSE: The entire audience and all performers were evacuated from the building and into the snow during our performance. There was no fire, a vendor was roasting chestnuts in the lobby. Which set off the smoke alarm.
Alaska Cruise ship FIRE ALARM! CAUSE: Dang incinerator again
Midwest hotel FIRE ALARM! CAUSE: No fire, someone smoking in their room.
I learned this song in Girl Scouts. It’s called “Johnny Appleseed,” and it meant nothing to me at the time, just a fun little tune.
Fast forward (very fast) almost 50 years and this song and the lore of Johnny Appleseed means a whole lot more. Feelings and experiences have happened over those years that have made a simple song and a simple idea turn into something so deep and profound – it’s hard to put into words (but here I am blogging, lol, so I’ll do my best).
Let me start with the concept of sharing, but with one little change…let’s use an onion seed instead of an apple seed (bear with me, I don’t eat apples every day, but I do eat onions or onion salt or onion powder nearly every day). Johnny shared his apple seeds, and I’ve been sharing onions…..special onions called Egyptian walking onions. I entered the onion-sharing world when I met Ray Eicher, aka the onion man. Ray loved John Denver music and came to our concerts whenever he could. When he learned about my love for gardening, Ray promptly gave me some walking onions and told me that he had been sharing these unique onions all over the East coast and as far West as Nevada.
My adopted onions plants thrived in California, and so I’ve shared them with friends in Florida, Alabama and a new generation of gardeners (my son and his friends) in Idaho. The plant is perennial, and every part of the walking onion plant is edible. The onions are called walking onions because they grow new onions at the very top of their stalk. The new onions eventually become too heavy for the stalk, then the stalk falls over and the new onions root themselves to the ground wherever they fall…one step away (walking) from the parent plant.
Sadly, I just got an email from the onion man’s wife Adele. Ray has passed away, but I proudly keep the gift he gave to me and have shared it with others who will continue to share with many more.
The Lord is good to me. He has given me friends that share their gifts, talents and time with me. Step by Step, I do my best to pass along whatever I can. Together we plant the seeds that become the spice of life.
Thank you, Ray!
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