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The Ten Most Recent Comments By jlhartford

From Serious Eats

Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Amateur Gourmet'

I was in middle school. I was into baking when I got home from school, even had my own cookbook for kids. There was a recipe for an all-purpose baking mix, which you could then use to make cookies, cakes, pancakes, etc.

I wanted to whip up a cake, so I started with the base. Halfway through, I called my mom at work and told her to bring home a bag of flour, as I didn't have enough to finish my mix.

"But," she said, "I just bought an entire bag. Look in the pantry."

I had looked in the pantry...and used that entire bag. I had neglected to read how many servings the mix would produce. Instead of one cake, we had enough mix to make about 50. Which wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't used too much baking soda. Every one of those cakes tasted like crap...

jlhartford at 12:30PM on 10/06/07

Responses to Comments by jlhartford

From Serious Eats

Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Amateur Gourmet'

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!

DabbaMac at 11:23AM on 10/10/07

From Serious Eats

Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Amateur Gourmet'

Way back when I first started cooking at home, my wife and I made a recipe out of Fine Cooking magazine. It was a pretty simple pasta dish with cheese, crushed tomatoes, garlic, italian sausage, and pasta. Pretty simple stuff.

This time I decide I'm going to make it myself and surprise her after a hard day at work. I survey the recipe, make at the grocery list and procure the said items.

All fired up, I start measuring out all of the ingredients. Took the sausage out of the casing, get the water ready for the pasta, open up the crushed tomatoes, and mince four cloves of garlic.

So I'm mincing, and mincing, and mincing. True, I was very new to the kitchen so my knife skills weren't that good. Dude, this is taking forever! How do these old Italian women stand this? No wonder they spend all day in the kitchen, they're mincing garlic! I bet you this operation took an hour. My eyes are on fire, my fingers stink, and I'm wondering why I even embarked on this ill-conceived journey.

I finally get everything combined and it looks just like the picture in the magazine. With a bag of iceburg lettuce and the best frozen garlic bread $2 could buy, dinner was now served. My wife was pleasantly surprised by my motivation to cook dinner. We sit down and eat.

I take a bite.

She takes a bite.

"Whoah! What in the hell is that?" she said (and I thought).

"That's got some serious garlic in it! How much did the recipe call for?", she asked.

"Four cloves, and it took forever to mince.", I replied.

"What took so long?", she wondered.

I go over to the garbage I show her the leftover garlic skins.

"Oh, wait a minute.", I said

I will conclude this story by saying the whole dinner went in the trash and I now know the difference between a clove and bulb of garlic.


eatdrinkandbemerry at 11:35PM on 10/09/07

From Serious Eats

Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Amateur Gourmet'

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)

djsophieb at 11:07AM on 10/09/07

From Serious Eats

Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Amateur Gourmet'

I was trying to bake Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Guiness Cake for an event at work. One of the steps is to cook the Guinness on the stovetop, along with butter and sugar. Unfortunately, I misread the recipe and made the rest of the batter in the pot on the stovetop. it started to cook, and after baking, the cake was filled with odd-tasting chunks. it was a total loss. Bad news.

ConschBTJ at 10:59AM on 10/09/07

From Serious Eats

Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Amateur Gourmet'

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.

lrohner at 8:26AM on 10/09/07

From Serious Eats

Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Amateur Gourmet'

This weekend, we made a Black Forest Cake for an Octoberfest party. Unfortunately, the humidity got the best of the cake and the layers started to slide around. Not one of our best cakes...

rudolfrassen at 7:20AM on 10/09/07

From Serious Eats

Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Amateur Gourmet'

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

bisbee at 5:39PM on 10/08/07

From Serious Eats

Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Amateur Gourmet'

My absolute worst cooking disaster was back almost 30 years ago when I was a new bride just beginning to cook. Up until then, Mom had done all the day-to-day cooking, and there's just so many hotdogs you can eat. I had received a crock pot as a wedding gift, along with it's little recipe booklet. Hmmm. Cauliflour soup. Sounded pretty good, and within my skills range. Put everything in in the morning, and turned the pot on. Came home after work, expecting great things. Oh no. The aroma wafting under the door was not at all pleasant. The entire apartment reeked of rotten onions. I still use the crock pot, but that little recipe book went right into the garbage, along with all that soup.

sjwoodin at 5:09PM on 10/08/07

From Serious Eats

Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Amateur Gourmet'

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.

MrsCa at 4:58PM on 10/08/07

From Serious Eats

Weekend Book Giveaway: 'The Amateur Gourmet'

It was two weeks before we were closing on our house - in a market where we were lucky to even have someone to make an offer - I decide to make a bag of popcorn in the microwave. I was glad I smelled the smoke before the flames started licking at the cabinets. It took a fire extinguisher to get out all the flames. Popcorn makes really good fuel - and smells really, really bad for a couple of weeks. I will never, ever, ever cook in a kitchen without a little red canister - I think it saved my house! Luckily, we sold the house and we're much more careful about popping popcorn.

Dancingaroundthehouse at 4:55PM on 10/08/07