What is your worst cooking disaster hosting a dinner party?
When I was in my 20's I hosted a chili party. I made the sauce by hours of references of different chili recipes made a huge amount of sauce, simmered it for 3 days, went the whole nine yards, (Martha Stewart would have been proud). I decided that I was going to use the dry beans (never used them before, always used canned). Soaked them overnight, the morning of the party the beans were still hard as stones. So stupid me thought I will throw the beans in with the sauce and turn the heat up and by party time they will be soft. Not only did beans never get soft the chili sauce burned on the bottem of the pan and stirring it just made the whole thing have this scortched taste to it. There was no way to save this mess at this point and friends were already arriving. I was so angry at myself, but my dear friends insisted on eating it anyways, crunchy beans, scortched sauce and all. I made sure I had alot of beer on hand lol.
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23 Comments:
the worst was when I asked a friend if her new husband had any food allergies and she assured me he had none. The night of the dinner we watched as his face turned red and then white and swelled like an overripe watermelon, it seems he was allergic to shellfish but had never said anything to anyone, I had made paella with chicken sausage and shrimp. He thought just "eating around" the shrimp would be ok :S Needless to say we spent the evening in the emergency room.
huneybumper at 9:46AM on 09/01/08
@huneybumper food allergies has to be taken very serious, I supposedly am allergic to shellfish but so minor I have no effect. But I had to laugh at the way you described him turning multi colors it reminded me of the original 1970's Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie where that girl chewed that gum and started to turn multi colors and then blew up to a giant grape....Sorry the Bloody Mary might be kicking in.
pjracz10 at 10:12AM on 09/01/08
Was making Chicken with a lemon caper sauce - grabbed the green peppercorns in brine instead...didn't even notice - same size and same size bottle.
Just awful.
Nonny at 10:42AM on 09/01/08
Making chocolate molten cakes for the first time....grabbed salt instead of sugar. Hello!!??? Cooking 101!!!!!!??? I caught it before I served, but felt like such a dumbass!!! (I never mentioned it - we just had homemade vanilla ice cream with the chocolate ganache I had made and no one was the wiser.)
Chef Jo at 12:32PM on 09/01/08
Dinner for 6.
I spent all afternoon making meringues for a mini-pavlova dessert, lovingly packed them into a tupperware and set them on the back of the stove, as we had NO counter space and I was doing home-made pizza for dinner.
Well, it seems cooking pizza in a 500 degree oven creates enough heat on the stove top to melt tupperware, right into the bottom of my meringues.
Arrgh.
francie at 12:36PM on 09/01/08
I was making bell peppers stuffed with chicken for a dinner before going out to meet a bunch of people. I. . . forgot to turn on my oven. the timer went off, and I had cold, raw chicken in the oven. Well, not that cold anymore.
oops.
unarata at 7:02PM on 09/01/08
@pjracz10-- In the Willie Wonka movie the character's name was Violet Beauregarde and she turned into a blueberry after chewing experimental gum. Sort of.
"Violet you're turning... violet!!!"
Calichef at 8:55PM on 09/01/08
@calichef ROTFL !! Soooooo what is your worst dinner party?
pjracz10 at 10:05PM on 09/01/08
years and years ago, my first apartment, new year's eve dinner - my new husband and i invited our best friends over for lobster and champagne.....
i drank two glass of champagne before dinner on an empty stomach and wound up on the floor of the bathroom ... i won't go into details.... but
the dinner i waited so long to host and was so excited about .... well, it didn't go off as planned. though i did rally after a short nap.
pooch at 10:49PM on 09/01/08
oh, i need to add one more: my first thanksgiving dinner -- while making the gravy i substituted baking soda instead of cornstarch..... i'll never forget the faces of the guests when they tasted my turkey gravy.
pooch at 10:50PM on 09/01/08
@pooch LOL that must have been a gravy they never forgot. Yes champagne effects me in ways that I can not explain, but will not even take a taste for New Year's toast, because I come unglued.
pjracz10 at 12:44AM on 09/02/08
This thread reminds me of the part in Bridget Jones Diary (the book) where she ends up feeding her guests blue soup, an omelet, and orange jelly instead of the fancy gourmet meal she idealized.
agk685 at 6:32PM on 09/02/08
@pooch I thought my mom was the only one who had done that! I learned my lesson from her mistake and buy my cornstarch in a round container instead of the yellow box!
cyberroo at 6:52PM on 09/02/08
that 6 people confirmed and only 2 actually came... a lot of food wasted that night!!!
MadelynRodriguez at 7:59PM on 09/02/08
While cooking a beautiful pork roast for some friends, we heard a squeaking sound. Lo and behold, a mouse had gotten stuck on a sticky trap under the oven and my guest had to fish it out, take it outside for me and finish it off! Kind of takes away the appetite... I know it's not the nicest way to dispose of mice, but that's what happened.
sdownes at 9:17AM on 09/03/08
My worst was actually a Thanksgiving where I discovered too late that my roasting pan wouldn't fit in the oven. I bent the crap out of it, and crammed it in there. Everything seemed to be going fine until...BAM...the rack fell to the bottom of the oven because the pan and turkey was too heavy. This splashed turkey grease all over the inside of the oven and effectively smoked out all of our guests. I opened the oven, put the rack back up, put the turkey back on it and sure enough...BAM...it fell again...and again...and again. All throughout the cooking process of that damned bird it crashed to the bottom of the oven about every 10 minutes or so. Turned out to be pretty tasty, and my guests were very kind, but it truly was a complete disaster nightmare beyond compare. I haven't hosted a Thanksgiving since!!!
orinky at 9:49AM on 09/03/08
The absolute worst thing that happened at a dinner I hosted didn't have as much to do with cooking, but reheating!
I was hosting an Asian Dinner anchored by a Mongolian Hot Pot. Some friends spent a good part of the afternoon frying exotic chips like taro root, beet, etc. as a contribution to this meal. They insisted I reheat the chips in the oven. The kitchen was small and as many times as I tried to shoo everyone out, the "kitchen magnet" rule held true and guests kept meandering back in. Long story short, the acrid smoke that poured out of my oven was a constant reminder of my reheating flub. Efforts to de-smoke the house included opening up all doors and windows and actually fanning the smoke out of the apartment.
Now when I want an empty kitchen, I'm adamant about it.
therealchiffonade at 9:55AM on 09/03/08
Tough choice. Just a few months back, I was cooking home-made onion rings on the stovetop. The oil bubbled over onto the ceramic stove. I said, oh, I better get the fire extinguisher. My husband and guest (male) said, no, no, they'll just clean it up. Then Woooomph! The stovetop was in flames. Not the way to show off your cooking prowess.
Another time I was making roasted root vegetable bruschetta. The kitchen was tiny so always straightened up as I cooked. After an hour plus of chopping, dicing, and mincing and finally placing the veggies in the oven, I took the garbage out, heard the door to my apartment automatically slam shut and, Doh! I'm locked out. Fortunately, the neighbors were home and said I could crawl over their balcony to mine. More fortunately, I didn't need to do this (the crossing was 5 feet and there was a 30 foot drop) as they had a key to my apartment from when their uncle lived there!
OliverRanch at 10:54AM on 09/03/08
The first time I made paella, I went to a local "fancy" store to buy all the ingredients, just to make sure nothing went wrong. I bought all the expensive seafood, the saffron, and the rice. I asked one of the eager and seemingly-knowledgable staff there for paella rice. She promptly led me down an aisle, only to be thrown off by a big empty space on the shelf. Then she found another bag, and, delighted by her substitution, handed it to me with a smile.
There were six of us, and we enjoyed cocktails and light hors d'oeuvres while I cooked. When it came time to add the seafood, I checked the rice. Crunchy. I let it simmer a little more, and poured another round of drinks. Still crunchy. I continued with the recipe anyway, thinking the rice surely would become tender any minute. No deal. Crunch crunch crunch. I added more liquid, poured more drinks, cooked it a little more and it was STILL CRUNCHY. The hors d'oeuvres were long gone.
Finally, someone asked (slurred?) "uh, what kind of rice did you get?" I looked at the package: Short Grain...Brown Rice. "Takes twice as long to cook"...under NORMAL circumstances!
After fishing out the now-overcooked seafood and cooking and checking the rice (and moving on to wine), we finally ate it. It was still a little crunchy, but no one seemed to mind. I guess the combination of starving your guests and plowing them with booze can make anything palatable!
hungryinhouston at 11:02AM on 09/03/08
Very first dinner party, age 15. Spent a week coming up with a menu (chicken enchiladas and spanish rice). It was to be me and my boyfriend, and another couple. The boy half of the other couple never showed up and the girl decided she'd rather go and eat at Friday's with another friend. I planned, shopped, and cooked. I set the table with my mom's best linen and china. My boyfriend, who probably didn't even like the menu, ate as much as he could while I sat at the table and cried. Hmmm, it seemed so tragic at the time. It was sort of a bummer to enter the world of hostessing that way.
Kerosena at 2:40PM on 09/03/08
I was having a gourmet pizza party for my first ever book clup and was expecting about 10-15 women that evening. I woke up early to prep and get the house ready. By about 4PM I had been working for 7 hours and wanted to take a little break before my guests showed up at 6PM. So what do I do? Open a bottle of white wine an plop down by the pool which I promptly finished since I was so thirsty. Needless to say the combination of the heat, the wine, and the lack of sleep all combine to make the evening a little fuzzy. Luckily some pizzas did get made since a few friends showed up early to see if I needed help and there I sit with a fully prepped kitchen passed out by the pool. To this day when ever it's my turn to host the request is that I hold off on the wine until everyone is there and we have at least talked about the book.
JSchwo7 at 5:07PM on 09/03/08
I fixed sauteed chicken, rice pilaf, and mushrooms. Everything was tan. I would have sold my baby for some color on the plate! Embarrassingly monochromatic, but it tasted good.
Morgana at 11:35AM on 09/08/08
@JSchwo7 - LMAO! Something similar happened to me. My husband and I hosted our first Thanksgiving dinner ever for my side of the family. I had never made a stuffed turkey, but remembered the importance of not stuffing a cold bird with warm stuffing. Sooooo, I made the stuffing the night before and prepped the turkey. I got up at 8am, stuffed the bird to capacity, and shoved it in the oven at 11am for an anticipated 5:00 serving time. 5:00 came and went. The little "popper" still hadn't popped. My parents are the type who sit and eat at 5 on the button, bar nothing! So I broke open a bottle of wine, then another, hoping to quell their appetite. I'm afraid I got more than my fair share. By 8pm, the turkey was done and so was I. I made it through the meal and clean-up, then passed out on the sofa in a drunken stupor that everyone found hilarious (they were a little nailed as well). Someone came up with the bright idea to take the crucifix off the wall and place it in my hands folded across my chest. My head was dangling off the back of the sofa and I was drooling. What a photo op! They took at least a dozen pictures of me in various poses, all with the cross. Some had lillies with the cross. In another, they draped me in a shroud-like blanket and added a pair of rosary beads for good measure.
25 years later, I know how to properly prepare a turkey and I always host the family Thanksgiving dinner with a lovely, ample wine selection. No one has more than one glass because my camera is the featured centerpiece of my table. They all fear retribution for the dreaded Thanksgiving funeral when I was "dead" before the turkey.
Josdean at 11:49AM on 09/08/08