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Years ago I had some chicken salad at a girls luncheon that I loved - it had canned crushed pineapple in it. I decided to make it myself at home the next day. I usually can tell what's in a dish by tasting it. I figured I could make it even better by using chopped "fresh" pineapple. Long story short, after I made it, I tasted it (perfect!) then I put it in the refrigerator to serve it for dinner that night. Well, when dinner came around my chicken salad had turned into mush. I found out afterwards fresh pineapple breaks down the chicken meat. I always believe in using fresh ingredients whenever possible, but this is one time only "canned" will do.

1705 Prime Chophouse in Raleigh. They have the best ribeye filet.

Hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts - yum, yum, yum.

Our Trader Joe's Market in Cary, NC, do carry beer and wine and the prices are unbelievable! I especially love the Charles Shaw chardonnay that costs $2.99/bottle. The reds are good too.

Before mastering the art of basic pastry dough, I attempted a plum tart. I made the dough, thinking all was well-and-good, and put it in the fridge to chill. Then, I made the plum filling with fresh greenmarket plums. It looked, smelled, and tasted wickedly delicious. But, when the time came to assemble the thing...the dough was horrendeous.

I ended up trashing the whole thing and making a lousy plum cake.
Drat!

I've had my fair share of culinary disasters, but I really want to share my favourite family story, and that belongs to my Dad. Back in the early 90s when he couldn't cook, my Mum went away for the weekend.

Dad 'made' my sister and I quiche which he must have found in the very bottom of our chest freezer. It was rank... even after 30 mins in the over it was basically a pastry case with raw egg and bits of ham floating around inside.

Being just into my teens and newly aware of things like food poisoning and salmonella, I refused to eat it on safety grounds. My younger sister did likewise. My normally mild-mannered Dad had obviously had a hard day looking after the pair of us and blew his top, saying we always ate what Mum put in front of us (well yeah, that was cooked...!) and banning us from leaving the table until we'd cleaned our plates.

Terrified of dying due to consumption of runny quiche and unable to call Mum in the days before mobile phones, we sat there with tear streaked faces for two hours until Dad admitted defeat and sent us to bed.

The next day Mum returned and the second she got through the door I ran out and shouted: 'Mum, quiche isn't supposed to be runny, IS it?' Mum just turned to Dad, raised one eyebrow and said: 'What have you done now?!'

These days, my Dad is a thoroughly modern man who makes a mean spaghetti carbonara. But we like to remind him often of the worst weekend of our teens and 'the day he nearly killed us with his cooking' :o)

I've loved to cook since an early age. I remember back when I was still in elementary school, I decided to try to create one of my Dad's favorite pies, pecan pie, for his birthday. It was the first pie I'd ever made on my own, but it sounded pretty easy. Got the pie crust done, the filling was in and I spent oodles of time getting the pecans to look just right on top of the pie.

Halfway through the baking cycle, I smelled the most horrible smell and entered a completely smoke-filled kitchen. My Mom and Dad kicked in from there and got the "pie" out of the oven. When the smoke cleared, we realized what I had done. I had used a pie tin that had originally house a pie purchased from the bakery that HAD HOLES PUNCHED IN THE BOTTOM OF IT! All of the pecan pie filling (except the nuts) had seeped right through the crust and had become a lump of charcoal completely stuck to the bottom of the oven.

Let's add insult to injury -- this was before self-cleaning ovens were available. Nuff said.

a food disaster haiku:
home alone- first time!
.....gray macaroni and cheese!!!?!
hello garbage bin!

My worst cooking disaster was technically a baking disaster. I was making key lime cheesecake bars, which sound delicious but which were HORRIBLE. Of course part of this was probably my fault because I forgot to shake up the key lime juice before adding it to the batter. The other parts that made it horrible include a pretzel crust and pistachio topping. I took a bite when they were ready and didn't like it but thought maybe my husband would still like it as he's less of a picky eater. When he got home he dug right in and then looked shocked. He couldn't decide whether to spit it out and risk offending me or to swallow it and deal with the pain. In the end, I told him it was OK if he didn't like them because I didn't either. We threw out the rest of the pan and vowed never to try that recipe again.