Eat Dessert First

“Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first”

---Ernestine Ulmer

Faithful readers in this space (both of you) will remember that while I seldom miss a meal, I am a huge culinary failure. In more than a few of my efforts, there have been kitchen fires, near-fatal caramel spills, breakage of glass items, lacerations from utensils, and at least one call to a plumber, an electrician and, if I’m being honest, 911. 

Seriously, there is a reason that for any potluck, school party, or bake sale, my most desperate hope is that I get to the sign-up sheet early enough to put myself down to bring the napkins, the paper cups, the bottled water, or any other item that doesn’t involve preparing food. I love my friends, my family, and, to a lesser extent, my children’s teachers and classmates. That is why they should never be subjected to something cooked by me. It’s simply not fair.

I belong to a badminton club, and once a year, every member must cook a Friday night dinner. It’s a lovely tradition, and truly one I really enjoy. Usually, two or three families work together to make a meal. It’s about coming together, sharing what we have, lifting a glass, and breaking bread. My culinary impairments shouldn’t get in the way of a good time, but it still stresses me out. Luckily, the other families that have joined me in the kitchen over the years have done most of the heavy lifting and my job is shopping and bringing appetizers or a dessert that I can purchase. 

This year, we had a meal of enchiladas, beans and rice, assorted appetizers and churros with ice cream for dessert. It’s possible that overconfidence and/or delusions of grandeur played a part in my volunteering to bring both the side dish and the dessert. It’s these moments of my life that, once I’ve committed to, generate a panic that can only be compared to a scene from the Road Runner cartoons, where Wile E. Coyote realizes, just a moment too late, that he has gone off the cliff and will be plummeting to the desert floor, followed by an anvil landing on his head.

The rice and beans were not that hard to figure out; fortunately, I have lots of friends who are much better than I am at cooking without setting their hair on fire or poisoning anyone. The churros however? Well, all I can say is “WTH was I thinking?” I thought churros could just be purchased somewhere. Well, they can, but I was unsuccessful at finding out exactly where. So, my next move was to see if such a thing as frozen churros that could be baked or microwaved existed. Well, they do, but they must be fried in oil to be any good. Fabulous. Hot oil and dough, on a gas stove, what could possibly go wrong? Still, I had committed; failure was not an option. 

This is where my newest discovery happened. Instacart. It should be noted, in my house, we don’t hire out many jobs. I’m job hunting; there’s no budget for staff at this time. However, I did have an offer for free Instacart delivery and these frozen churros were not right around the corner at Crosby's. Full disclosure, it was a cold day, and laziness got to me. I pulled up the website, signed up, and claimed my first-timer free delivery. I handed over my about to be maxed out credit card, and ordered the churros, along with some rice, beans, spices, and a few other items. About two hours later, Vander, Instacart shopper extraordinaire, was at my door with the goods. Yes, I still have to cook them, and that will be an adventure (this column is written a week ahead of print, so dinner hasn’t happened yet) but I am up to the task.

While anything in a kitchen is a challenge for me, finding help via Instacart, my friends, and several recipe sites (as well as a coupon for a buy one, get one free carton of ice cream) made it much less stressful. Sometimes, we just need a little help. So thank you to Dr. Dan, Kathleen, Arthur, the other Arthur, Beatriz, Vander, and the two random women in the supermarket who helped me find the right kind of beans and rice. By press time, another dinner will be in the books. Check my blog for an update on how it all went.

UPDATE: Holy Potluck, Batman, the night was a total success. Thanks to friends and fellow cooks, it was a night of good food, new friends, old friends, and a tradition of breaking bread, sharing what we have, and welcoming others. Not bragging on my abilities, I am simply happy that there were no injuries, no fires, no food poisoning, and more than enough laughter to carry us through. A good time was had by all.

Live From a Kitchen Near You

“Cooking is the art of adjustment.”

---Jacques Pepin

Adjustment? No, I’m sorry, I am horribly maladjusted (or so I am told), so perhaps this has been the problem in the kitchen for me. It’s not that I don’t try hard. I do try. What I lack in skill I make up for in effort and the ability to put out a fire. There are kids to be fed in my family; takeout and cereal are not proper meals, at least not every day. Recently though, I challenged myself. A good friend is an excellent cook, foodie, blogger, and social media maven. Jessica Alves has it going on in the kitchen, from simple to elegant and everything in between.

She recently started hosting Facebook live videos from her kitchen with fun recipes that can feed a crowd or just a couple of preschoolers. Honestly, a couple of preschoolers is a crowd, and they can turn on you fast. She asked if I would be a guest on one of the videos. Her current project is about waffles. Not those frozen Frisbees, but genuine, homemade waffles. She can do anything with them; it’s quite something. The problem, for me anyway, was that I would be entering into a Holy Trinity of danger if I agreed. There would be open flames, sharp knives and a video camera aimed at me. I don’t do well with any of those. Not to brag, but I don’t even have to touch a pan or a utensil to have a near-death experience in a kitchen. I suffered a concussion just from mopping the floor in my kitchen. A track light exploded over my head once, because that is the kind of luck I have, and I nearly lost an eye. I accidentally killed a goldfish in my garbage disposal; it’s a long story, but the gist of it is, don’t clean a fish tank in the kitchen sink. The floor at my badminton club is still sticky from the Great Caramel Sauce Incident of 2012. But hey, I have red shoes, what could go wrong?

Still, I was intrigued, so, like many of the adventures people ask me to go on, my answer is eventually, “Ok, why the hell not?” We agreed on a date, and that was that. Until it was fast approaching on my calendar and then began the wailing and gnashing of teeth. What was I going to wear? Did they make aprons that would cover up the evidence of a well-fed summer of fried clams and soft-serve? I don’t own anything flame retardant or camera ready. What about my hair? I tie it back when I cook because burnt hair stinks up the kitchen, but it’s not a good look for a close-up. Thanks to another good friend, I found an apron, and she monogrammed it for me, in case there was some disfiguring accident, the EMTs would know it was me by my initials. Jessica had the food all handled; my job was just to show up and help. I even wore lipstick, because I could hear my mother’s voice in my head, “Would a little lipstick kill you? You’re gonna have your picture taken!”

I showed up at the right time and on the right day, an accomplishment in itself. It was go time! Jessica’s kitchen is organized and looks like a magazine layout of some celebrity’s home. She got the camera rolling and there we were. Making angel food cake waffles, with maple sauce and roasted fruit. You can roast fruit, who knew? Ok, everyone but me.  My first job was to slice up the cake. Check that off the list; no blood was spilled. So far, so good. Then, for the sauce, I had to boil maple syrup and sugar. In a pan, over a gas flame. Another home run! I stirred, it foamed, it caramelized, it was a thing of beauty. No burns, no spills. Melted butter had to be brushed on the cake slices and the waffle iron. Pro tip: Waffle irons are hot and melted butter is slippery. Still, no incidents! I was cooking with gas, literally! Dusting waffles with a dredge (great word!) of cinnamon and a mere splash of butter. Plating fruit. But wait, there’s more! Whipped coconut cream. If you keep a can of it in the fridge, you can beat it into a smooth topping that tastes amazing. The mixer was humming, the waffles were sizzling, and I didn’t burn the fruit. Truth be told, that’s because Jessica did that part, but, moving on, what about the video you ask?

Well. It turns out that I am not good at knowing where to put my arms, they just flap around. On film, it appears as if I have restless elbow syndrome, but I’m working on that. We won’t discuss the fact that the camera adds 80 pounds. People say it’s ten, but that is a vicious lie. Couldn't I just hide?

 Also, in a Facebook video people watching can comment during the broadcast. Except I couldn’t see the comments since I was busy licking the coconut cream mixing bowl. I’m a class act for sure. Finally, whenever I have to speak around or to people I don’t know, I make a concerted effort not to sound like my Aunt MAHHHHGAHRET from DAW-CHESTAH. Except for this time. Holy Masshole Batman, it was wicked pissah. I did avoid dropping any F-bombs though, and if you know me, you know that’s a win.

All in all, it was seriously fun and surprisingly safe considering a kitchen is pretty much the Bermuda Triangle for me. Check out Jessica’s website at https://atasteforliving.com/blog/ for awesome recipes and videos. I will be back, stay tuned. Jessica's blog can be found here

https://atasteforliving.com/blog/ and the video is hosted here

This Week's Column

Hi! Faithful followers (both of you) here is where I would normally post my Marblehead Reporter column for this week, 2/15/2018  Except somehow the silicon chip inside my head....OK, yes, a senior moment, a brain fart, whatever resulted in me writing a column and yet never actually pushing "SEND" on the email to my ever faithful, ever vigilant editor. 

Rookie mistake, I mean I've only been a writer since I was like, fifteen.  So there is no sage advice this week except to say that...tune in next week to the Marblehead Reporter for the column I intended to publish this week. Irony alert...it's about planning, organization, and to do lists. Because I am a feckin genius with that.

Artificial Intelligence In The Modern Kitchen

"Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"--Unknown

I am a science journalist when I'm not annoying the hometown readers here, and my main topic is neuroscience. Artificial intelligence (AI) is real. There's a lot of math involved, and thankfully, I don't know have to understand all of it, but algorithms and machine learning are part of a lot of new research on brain cancer, Alzheimer's disease, autism and so much more. It's necessary for science, medical research, the space program but I'm not sure if my appliances really need it. I'm shopping around for a new microwave since mine is about to bite the dust. Perhaps they will have some after Christmas sales, and I can save some Kitchen Aid or GE nuker from being sent to the Island of Misfit Microwaves

Believe it or not, AI is the new thing for the kitchen of the future. Much like the web connected thermostats and the Alexa Wi-Fi assistants, the technology for kitchen appliances is right up there with the Jane Jetson Food-a-Rac-a-Cycle. While I would never have an Alexa (Echo, Dot, whatever) in my home because it creeps me out to think there's a live mic just waiting to use speech recognition to decipher everything it hears, some high tech in the kitchen is necessary. Cooking has never been my strong suit. It's considered a win if a meal is produced with no bloodshed, no broken glass or bones, and the fire department is not summoned.

The latest microwaves have "sensor technology" that was developed with AI. At least that's what the salesperson said; I wasn't paying that much attention to the details. My concerns were "Does it cook stuff?" and "Will you deliver it?". The microwave we chose has a popcorn button, and a potato button, both of which have little pictures on them of popcorn and potatoes, so users don't confuse them with the button makes the light go on. That one has a bulb on it. There's even a button with a little cup on it. I'm going to guess that's for making coffee or tea, but I should probably check the directions to make sure. That's another advance; the directions are all online, none of these tree-killing paper booklets, so now the cell phone is involved in downloading the app that tells me how set the clock.

Finally, it's set up, and I toss in a bag of microwave popcorn and push the button. It beeps, and across the keypad, like crawler on the bottom of the financial channel with all the stock prices, it reads "Sensing…Sensing" Really? I pushed the popcorn button, what else did it need to know, if I had Netflix and was going to "chill?" Then it said "Large bag..3.5 oz." How did it know? It was a little weird, honestly. What would be next, a disembodied voice asking me, "are you going to eat that entire thing by yourself Fatty McButter Pants?"

The next night I decide to have baked potatoes. In they go, beep beep goes the potato button.  More sensing, with the display reading, "calculating." Could my microwave have trust issues? Why doesn't it believe me?  Then it reads, "four medium potatoes." Now I'm officially scared, there were exactly four potatoes.  How does it know that? What else can it see? I was much happier when my appliances were stupid and couldn't read or count.

Except for my dishwasher. Whoever programmed that knows that I don't pre-rinse and whenever the start button is pushed, it automatically runs the "undisciplined slob" cycle on every load. Is there a mother ship that is communicating with all these appliances? What if, somewhere, there is a cloud that has all this home tech data assembled in it? Are there AI overlords that know who gets the popcorn with the extra butter and movie theater grease and who is having steamed veggies?  Are the smart refrigerators, with their ice sensors and water filters, dutifully keeping track of how long it takes to finish a pint of Ben and Jerry's. Pro tip: we don't need artificial intelligence for that, it takes two episodes of Grey's Anatomy, or one viewing of the movie "When Harry Met Sally." Technology is fantastic, and we need it, but as far as the kitchen goes, I might be more of a Wilma Flintstone than a Jane Jetson.