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When I was young I cooked popcorn in the microwave without a lid....Not too bright!

I was trying t impress some friends and made hot chocolate from scratch but forgot to add any sugar

Working in a fast food restaurant and filling the mayonnaise jug with horseradish instead. The lunch rush was over before I figured out what I'd done wrong and why everyone was complaining about their burgers.

I hate to say, even with 7 years working as a cook I can't really remember any embarassing incidents. I guess I'm lucky!

When I married I was pretty confident in my cooking skills. The second year we were married I found out there were till things I had to learn. That year I decided to have my in laws over for Christmas dinner. I would make most of it with just a couple of my sister in laws adding a dish . Thing is I had never prepared or cooked a Turkey on my own. It was always my mom's job. So Christmas eve i'm getting the Turkey ready and was very upset because MY Turkey didn't have any giblets and I always made my special sage dressing with giblets. I grit my teeth and made the dressing without giblets. Early Christmas morning we opened gifts ad I put on my apron and started cooking, The pies were beautifl the Turkey golden and I was still bemoaning the fact that my dressing was missing the giblets when my oldest sister in law was the first to arrive. She called me to the kitchen and my almost done turkey and showed me where they were hidden at the Other end of the bird. Boy did i blush!! The embarrasement would have ended there, except my loving husband had to tell everyone who walked thru the door about it LOL

I don't have one, sorry :(

When I met my husband one of the first things I told him was not to expect a domestic goddess and that I hoped he liked just the basics for cooking because that was about all I could do. I honestly don't think he believed me until one evening when I was boiling some water for pasta and I forgot about it because I got to doing other things. Needless to say that when I finally noticed was when he noticed that there was an empty pot on the stove and the inside was chipping off. After the initial shock wore off he turned to me and said that he now believed me and would I like to go out to dinner.

Making my first homemade chicken soup for company. Everything is going well. One of the last steps-drain broth and return to pan...and then debone cooked chicken. Forgot to put a PAN UNDER the strainer...broth went right down the sink. I had chicken and a few carrots...soup-gone!
Dinner-take out pizza!

I had invited six friends to stay over for the holiday of Sukkot. I decided that the best thing to do was to make one really large bird instead of several smaller ones, so I acquired a turkey. When I was picking spices out of the cabinet with which to season it I thought I recalled something about using some powdered chicken soup starter. Forgetting that that was something to do later to make gravy, I added several shakes of the powder to the mix of onion, paprika, etc. that I was rubbing under the skin. When the turkey came out of the oven it was moist when cut and smelled wonderful. When I served it and finally took a bite I realized that the powdered soup mix was probably a bad idea. It was the saltiest thing I have ever cooked. So embarrassing. Unfortunately that wasn't the only bad thing to happen that weekend. There was a chicken soup incident. I can't even go into it.

You might also read the original "Saucier's Apprentice" by Raymond Sokolow, published in 1976. Subtitled "A Modern Guide to Classic French Sauces for the Home," it's a tour de force, and a must for every serious cook. I haven't read Spitz's, but am I alone in tiring of all the many post-modern permutations of food books? I'm a food blogger myself, and a voracious reader of literary food crap. But as my stomach has distended from too much good food, I feel a similar pressure on brain from too many food magazines and clever personal stories about cooking/eating. Or maybe it's just Monday and I'm cranky.

I had the "great idea" to make stuffed chicken. So I pounded out the breasts, layered them with cheese and veggies, and rolled them up neatly. Then I secured them with toothpicks. Rainbow toothpicks. Dinner that evening was very festively colored... I don't know what I was thinking. It was a very blue soup Bridget Jones moment.

I set out to make penne with vodka sauce one evening, thinking that I had plain vodka in the fridge. Since I tend to cook very quickly and don't always pay the most attention, it wasn't until sitting down and eating the sauce later that I realized I had used watermelon vodka. ew. ew ew. I haven't even thought about making vodka sauce since.