Feast logo

Eat, Drink and Be Wary

Results may vary when I'm behind the stove

By Vivian R McInernyPublished about a year ago Updated about a year ago 4 min read
Like
Image created by Vivian McInerny using NightCafe

I cook as I yodel. With erratic highs and lows.

Imagine Julie Andrews warbling The Lonely Goatherd song. At the end, you may fall madly in love. Or you may have to eat the string puppets.

Being unpredictable in the kitchen presents a special burden during the holidays. Not so much for me but for guests who feel a certain obligation to eat what is put before them.

A Thanksgiving dinner guest once declared my cornbread stuffing the best he’d ever tasted. He wasn’t being polite. The combination of celery, nuts and raisins was flipping amazing.

Another dinner guest at another Thanksgiving suggested my turkey made him physically ill. He wasn’t being rude. Turned out what appeared to be an abundance of sage was actually mold hiding in the rarely used baster.

Yeah, oops.

Gastronomic disasters are not exclusive to the holidays, of course. But during this special time of year, friends and family gather together to break bread — and maybe a few of grandma’s special glasses — around the dinner table so the culinary witnesses are many.

And they will, with annual calendar prompting, provide forever after hilarious testimony of disasters past.

One time for a holiday potluck with friends, I made the most gorgeous apple pie. After carefully selecting a delicious variety of crunchy apples, I lovingly sliced and layered them in a beautiful spiral pattern to wow Martha Stewart. Then I topped it with a pastry lid, fluted the edges, and brushed it all with an egg wash.

If pies were beauty pageant contestants, this one would have been crowned and crying center stage. None of that Miss Congeniality stuff for her.

But as the night went on, I noticed other foods on the buffet table were ravaged while my apple pie remained untouched.

Perhaps she was simply too beautiful to mar with a knife.

A friend of a friend was in line for a second slice of chocolate cake so I gently encouraged him to try the apple pie.

“After you,” he insisted.

Such manners, I thought. How delightful!

Turned out, he was simply too polite to say that he’d already tried to cut the pie and discovered the pastry required a jackhammer.

I was so embarrassed that when we left the party, I discreetly tried to smuggle the pie out under my jacket. The host hugged me goodbye which might have resulted in apple sauce but for the armor of pastry between us.

To this day, I have no idea how I managed to combine flour and butter to create a bullet proof pie. But if the military needs to get in touch with me, I’m here.

My emotional state undoubtedly influences my cooking. One day, I might wake up in the chef zone. Cook books and written recipes are not only unnecessary but actually get in the way. Instinct is everything on these days. I can open the fridge, grab this and that, and effortlessly throw together a proper meal. I will find exactly the right spices in the back of a drawer. I can slide aside a bowl in a lower cabinet and discover I just happen to have the weird shaped pan or ridiculously specific gadget required to make the dish in mind. And if not? I will inexplicably demonstrate a complete and expert understanding of how I might substitute one thing for another resulting in never-before-tasted culinary perfection.

Everything feels magical. And, of course, the flavors are divine.

Other days are a nightmare.

Like a TSA dog, I will smell trouble. But then a surreptitious sneak will throw me a bone and I'll ignore all my instincts and training and tail-wag the bad guys right through security.

If I stand at the stove on these no-good days, I'll feel as if I'm wading ankle-deep through a kind of marshy mucky swamp. And with every move, I'll sink deeper.

My earlier and rather modest menu ambitions, suddenly seem to me like a multitude of Homeric odysseys. Separating egg yoke from white? A wholly unnatural act that the universe can and will thwart at every attempt! Whipping cream to lovely thick consistency? Ha! No matter how diligent I am, I will accidentally overdo it and churn up a bowl of lumpy butter. Roasting chestnuts in the oven? I will forget the crucial act of slitting the shells with a knife and they will explode like a score of tiny dirty bombs leaving nut-guts all over the glass oven door.

Everything is a nightmare and my kitchen becomes a torture chamber to which I am securely chained.

And dinner guests are on the way.

When it comes to cooking, I am as reliable as a soufflé. I will rise to impressive heights. I will collapse into a soupy mess.

And the worst part is that I never know which me I'll be. OK, the issue is arguably worse for the dinner guests expected to eat the results.

In an ideal world I would, on a good day, impulsively invite people over to share a meal and we'd eat, and talk, and eat some more. And everyone would leave feeling not only satisfied but also deliriously impressed by the food.

What a fine cook and delightful host, I imagine them saying on the drive home.

This ideal world would also involve my ability to rescind at a moment's notice any invitation to dine at my table. Even if that means rescheduling Thanksgiving.

What are you doing next Tuesday?

satirehumanity
Like

About the Creator

Vivian R McInerny

A former daily newspaper journalist, now an independent writer of essays & fiction published in several lit anthologies. The Whole Hole Story children's book was published by Versify Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021. More are forthcoming.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments (1)

Sign in to comment
  • Hannah Mooreabout a year ago

    But who doesn't love both an impromptu delight and and unexpected evening in? Sounds perfect to me! A lovely read.

Find us on social media

Miscellaneous links

  • Explore
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Support

© 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.