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DINNER GONE BAD... continued...

Main Course...

Here it is folks. The laughable part of the meal. I decided to make lobsters for my wife for V Day. Only thing is, the fellow at the grocery store sold me LIVE lobsters.

Well, let me tell you. Those things are a little harder to kill than expected. At first I got my trusty survival knife out and was going to stab them. My wife stopped me. So then I grab a spoon and start bonking them in the head trying to at least knock them out.

lol. I found out why they put the rubber bands on the claws. They will certainly pinch you while you are trying to kill them. I still have a blood blister. Then my wife says just put em into the boiling pot of water!!! WHAT??? ALIVE??? Gross.

So I do as I am told and them suckers kept crawling out. Must have needed a bigger pot. So finally I lay them on their back one at a time in there. Between fighting them boogers and making the salad, now you can see why I had my hands full. So then I throw some butter in there with them. They must have liked that cause they stayed still.

Then I start on dessert. I hear this popping sound. The doggone claws busted on me.

So I take them out and serve them up. Unfortunately, they weren`t quite done yet. So onto dessert we went.

Now you see what happens in the kitchen with an inexperienced hand.

Dan

This time I got smart with the dessert. I grabbed the ingredients. Was going to try the chocolate mouse advised on earlier but threw it all in the garbage.

I grab our coats and took my wife out to a cozy little restaurant where we order a decent meal. They even gave her a piece of red velvet cake for V Day.

Maybe we should rename V Day to D Day. Although it turned out victorious in the end, it started as a total disaster.

I learned my lesson. All simple recipes and my digital recorder from now on.

Plus my mom has loaned me some of Paula Deen`s (I think that`s spelled right) magazines so that I do some down home cooking with simple dishes.

Boy. What a life. But it won`t be long before you see me on the cover of a cooking magazine. Don`t know if it will be a most wanted photo or not.

NEXT STEP!!! Melon carving!!

Dan

See? What`d I tell ya... :-D The very first ingredient for you to look for is called "Restaurant." It`s usually pretty easy to find, although the prices vary depending on what street they`re found. 

So true Craig.

But finally I`ve set my mind to not letting this beat me.

I`m going to take it slow and easy and make sure I`ve got instructions (very very thorough instructions) before attempting anything.

I think it will be safe to go without the instructions on the melon carving. Don`t suppose you saw the thing on the food channel the other night in Hawaii about the chefs making 5 foot tall representations of Hawaii culture out of melons and other related foods did you? That was pretty doggone neat. I wouldn`t attempt anything like that yet but I think a watermelon shaved to represent a basket would be a nice addition to our churches` Easter table. Use it to put melon balls in or something like that.

I`ve already got the design in mind. This is something which doesn`t require cooking. It only requires the creativity aspect. I should be good to go on that.

Dan

I think you need to go back to basic training. That, or Tai Chi, where you work with very small, detailed movements, very slowly, gradually teaching your body a new set of habits.

One thing, and I`m actually being serious, is to try with a soft-boiled egg. They take 3 minutes, but the problem is to know when to start timing...from the moment you put the egg in water, or from the moment the water begins to boil?

Another, and again being serious, is to make a grilled cheese sandwich. These are two so-called simple things, but they actually require a fair amount of skill.

A very good way to learn to cook is with semi-prepared foods. There`s a product called Easy Mac (I`m not sure on the spelling), where you end up with 1 serving of mac and cheese using only boiling water. From there, a couple of other companies offer more sophisticated (and better tasting) mac and cheese, with the addition of more than only water.

Move up from there and pick up a box of Betty Crocker packaged scalloped or "au gratin" potatoes. They too require using a couple of ingredients.

The purpose here is to begin to pay attention to not only the utensils and how they`re used, how to clean them, and how they get dirty. Additionally, pay attention to how water works, what`s the difference between boiling and simmering, and high, medium, and low heat on a burner.

Mixing and blending are important skills too. As such, when you`re confident with the Betty Crocker potatoes, try making some basic mashed potatoes from scratch. That`ll help with peeling, size of the pieces, the tests for "done-ness," and what purpose is served by adding milk, leaving it only as water, and how butter functions.

Cooking is mostly chemistry and physics. It isn`t "easy," and certainly not as "easy as pie!" To make a good pie crust is an art as much as a skill.

I wonder if eating melon balls will overly increase your testosterone levels?

I don`t know about melon balls increasing testosterone levels but I do know that it sure looked like fun carving those melons out.

I have used the mac and cheese with the boiling water!! lol. Little did I know this was a step. It`s a small cup with the noodles in the bottom and a the cheese powder in a small pouch. You place the water in to the line level and nuke it for about 3 minutes. Or is it one and a half. I`d have to read the instructions again. Anyway, keep the water in the cup and add the powder. Voila!!! Instant mac and cheese.

I`m trying to start with the ready made stuff and which has very explicit instructions. Otherwise, I`m going to be emailing someone concerning the instructions and giving them a piece of my mind. I know. You are probably thinking, hold on feller, you ain`t got much to spare. But I can tell you, I`ll be all over it.

Ok. I gotta jet. Getting emails from China again about a new line of products I`m going to be introducing soon.

I`ve got a plan and when it comes to the military and associated stuff, they usually work.

Dan