Writing about food since 2004.
Category
Disasters
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The Time I Made A Lime Leaf-Infused Lime Daiquiri But Couldn’t Open The Cocktail Shaker
I’m a big fan of Simply Ming on PBS (in fact, I’m just a big fan of cooking shows on PBS in general). But Simply Ming seems to be one of the only platforms on TV where real, heavyweight chefs can come and showcase a dish (Daniel Boulud and Shaun Hergatt were recent guests). And…
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Caketastrophe 2013 (A Disaster with an Edible Ending)
The bar was set very low. I wanted to recreate the Olive Garden chocolate cake that we used to get for our non-birthdays, growing up (non-birthdays because my parents would lie and say it was somebody’s birthday so we’d get a free cake) and would keep in our refrigerator for the week. I’d eat it…
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The Most Disgusting, Inedible Dinner I’ve Ever Cooked
We all mistakes in the kitchen, even those of us who’ve been cooking ten years or longer. My mistakes are all documented here on the blog: The Pound Cake That Threw Up. The Fried Chicken That Wasn’t Crispy. The Blueberry Disaster. In all of these cases, the food was salvageable. The pound cake went back…
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You Don’t Want To Make These Oatmeal Pancakes
Look, I’m going to level with you. These are pretty pictures I took last weekend, on a Sunday morning, after I’d made coffee for myself and read the Sunday New York Times and decided I wanted some breakfast. In the refrigerator, I had leftover English Porridge from April Bloomfield’s cookbook, with its great salty sweet…
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How To Completely Fail at Making Chocolate Cups
No good deed goes unpunished; or, in my case, no attempt to craft a timely, seasonal post–this one for Valentine’s Day–goes un-disastrously. I’m not usually that kind of blogger, but this time around I thought, “Well, why not have a beautiful, chocolatey Valentine’s Day-oriented dessert on my blog for Monday morning? What harm could that…
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Burnt Sticky Buns
What’s there to say when you burn your sticky buns? It’s a pretty unkind thing to do. On a Sunday morning, you pique everyone’s interest with rumors of sticky bun making; then you roll them, pop them in the oven, and fill the apartment with a wonderful smell. And then you burn them. What kind…
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Flambé Story
When Craig’s parents stayed with us last year for Craig’s graduation, they were very amused to come home one day to find me in the kitchen candying orange peel for no reason. “Do you just do that?” asked Julee, Craig’s mom. “Decide to make something just for the heck of it?” Pretty much! And that’s…
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Biggest Flops
Let’s be honest–you get a bit of a thrill when I screw up, don’t you? Lord knows I’ve screwed up enough on this blog to justify its name, and here are a few of my favorite disasters.
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Dangerous Duck
I’ve been doing this blog for almost five years–FIVE YEARS!–and in those five years I have never, not even once, made myself sick from something I cooked. Until now. Look at that lovely autumnal duck dish, above. It comes from a famous chef’s cookbook, but he’s not such a famous chef that I want to…
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The Cookies That Looked Like Dog Poo
I was recently gifted the “Tartine” cookbook; a gorgeous hardcover book with an introduction by Alice Waters and pictures that make you want to lick the page. Those who remember my trip to San Francsico will remember my trip to Tartine (click here) and the delightful frangipane tart I enjoyed.
