Fire in the Kitchen! | Oh Honestly, Erin

Applegate

Epic Fail, Fire in the Kitchen!, Food, really bad ideas

Oct 272011

Or: How Barb Found Another Way To Ruin My Life

Before Barb left work on Monday, she had to go and fuck up my whole world by offering me an apple. I just smiled and said thanks, but what was really happening at that moment was that a vignette of cumulative botched apple-cutting situations began whirring around in my head, my inner-wrists started tingling at even the suggestion of wielding a paring knife, and my teeth were curling back inside my gums at the thought of biting into a whole apple.

Meanwhile the ghost of Johnny Appleseed openly mocked me from above my desk.

It just sat there all night, to the left of me, this glowing red/yellow orb of temptation. If I had been the original Eve, the Bible as we know it (and I don’t really know it) would be drastically altered, because I have a feeling Adam would have been too busy exploring holes with his dick to cut a fucking apple.

We might all be walking around nude right now.

Eventually, I tossed it into my purse, thinking I would just find some way to eat it at home. And by that I of course mean Henry would put a Gerber bib on me and slice the apple into Erin-appropriate wedges.

That night at work, I ate peanuts and Halloween candy instead. Fucking apple.

***

I forgot the apple was in my purse until the next morning and Henry had the audacity to not drop everything and come home from work wearing his produce armor to cut my fucking apple.

“Where did you get an apple?!” he asked, probably thinking I was trying to eat random growths from neighborhood trees again.

Gee, I don’t know, Henry. An old fucking lady brought it up to my cottage window while goddamn bluebirds sang Disney songs behind her.

“Barb gave it to me last night and I put it in my purse! Don’t act like you don’t go through my purse!” I answered defensively, like I was trying to deny an affair with a bait shop owner.

(This all happened via Facebook; look at me, making it appear that Henry and I have real life conversations that don’t take place via the Internet, text, and Post-It Notes!)

Seriously, when will apples shake their stigma? WE NEARLY BROKE UP OVER THIS.

I had people on twitter sending me tutorials but the first I watched said I needed a melon baller and I started to break a sweat because I was pretty sure we don’t have a melon baller and also because I think I used a melon baller as a torture device in a short story I wrote a long time ago.

I decided to just wait for Henry to come home from work.

***

Henry hadn’t yet had a chance to get both feet through the door before I was blocking his path and shoving an apple-fist in his face.

He looked tired and disgruntled.

“Give me the fucking thing,” he said, snatching the apple from my hand. As he disappeared into the kitchen, I heard him grumble, “You’re pathetic.”

Nice to know he worries about my safety and the possibility of apple-induced arterial spray.

He practically frisbee’d a plate of shoddily-cut apple wedges at me before storming out the door to pick up our son, who will have to learn how to cut his own apples if he ever so much as dreams of eating one when Henry is away from the house.

This was definitely the product of a pissed off man with a knife. I call it Henry Sliced the Apple: the shocking conclusion to How Will Erin Eat Her Apple?

***

When I got to work later that day, I regaled Barb with the horrors of what had come to be known as Applegate. I did a lot of hand-wringing to further illustrate the distress her stupid apple had put me under.

“Oh, honey,” she said in her Babying Erin Voice, which you might have figured gets a ton of use. “You should have just used the apple corer we keep here.”

WHAT APPLE CORER.

I took a picture of Barb demonstrating, so I could look back on it for reference.

That night, Barb left me another apple, the apple corer thing, and an assignment: to try it by myself.

I waited until everybody but the late shift people had gone for the day, just in case I wound up causing a scene. You never can be too safe. My first attempt propelled the apple with great force against the kitchen wall, knocking over the paper towel holder. (Speaking of the paper towel holder: The roll was empty the other night and I put a new one on all by myself. So now no one can say I haven’t helped out around there.) I think I didn’t have it properly centered because I might not have been paying attention.

My second attempt sent me lurching into the kitchen counter, but I did reach some low level of success. I couldn’t get the blades to split the apple the whole way through and wound up having to break it off the corer thing, but this was a win as far as Things Erin Tries To Do In The Kitchen goes.

Then I happily ate my apple, while saying, “I did this myself!” to everyone who walked by. (And by everyone, I mean just Carey.)

And that is how I learned to cut an apple at work.

(You should see me with an orange.)

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Pie Party 2: Electric Berryloo

Fire in the Kitchen!, Food, Food Fun, where i try to act social

Oct 132011

Why do I keep having parties? All they do is stress me the fuck out. And you know, this time, I was trying to be more lackadaisical about it but all that did was make me wake up Saturday morning to a constricted chest and a build-up of pre-party heart palpitations. And it wasn’t like there was a ton to do — Henry just had to make two pies while I roamed around the house, looking at my imaginary Swatch watch and calling him a motherfucker.

“I don’t know why you get so stressed out when I’m the one who has to do everything,” Henry called out from the kitchen, elbow-deep in butterscotch, while I zoned out to Chiodos and buffed my fingernails. Finally, he finished his pistachio pie and deemed the butterscotch pie as “getting there,” so we packed it all up and split for the pavilion; upon arrival, Henry had already written a list of a hundred things he forgot, which meant Chooch and I got to hang out alone in the pavilion while he “ran real quick” to the store.

I. False Hope

While I was chastising my son for being 5 and incapable of using a swingset on his own, a car pulled up the dirt part alongside the pavilion. Chooch and I ran a Special Olympics practice lap toward it just as a man was emerging from the driver’s side. It wasn’t anyone I recognized, but I am never one to turn away a pie aficionado.

“Do you mind if I take some pictures of my wife?” he asked. That’s when I noticed that in place of a checkered bib fastened around his neck and a pie fork in each hand, he came equipped with his camera, his very pregnant wife, and a young kid.

Oh.

Hopes crushed, I gave them the green light and Chooch and I moped back to the playground with our heads down. Maybe that was just me. It was already past the start of the party and no one had arrived, so what did I care if some weirdos were taking lovey-dovey family portraits over by the porta john.

Then another car pulled down and around the pavilion, so Chooch and I jumped up and cheered just in time for the two strangers in the car to leer at us as they drove back up the road.

“What the fuck?!” I yelled to the party gods, who were clearly angry with me for some reason. Not sending thank you cards fast enough after my birthday party? God, fuck off.

Finally, Henry came back at the same time my brother Corey and his girlfriend Danielle arrived, so they were here for the next fake out, when a pick up truck pulled into the lot across the street but then it turned out to be some assholes bringing their dog to the park for a walk. It was nearly 2 at this point and I started to cry a little.

II. The Horse

The incredibly affectionate family/pie party crashers had taken a break in their photo session long enough to plop down for a picnic in the grass. We were sitting at a table under the pavilion, openly mocking them, when Corey noticed a horse coming out of the woods. Atop the horse sat a poised older woman in some kind of fucking safari hat and chambray shirt. Corey could not stop talking about how poised she was, like she was expecting to be photographed or draped with a champion’s sash. Everyone (but me) took turns telling her how beautiful her horse was as she clomped off toward the playground.

Chooch decided that he HAD TO GO TO THE SWINGSET at this moment and he would have to RUN AS FAST AND AS LOUDLY as he possibly could because it might not be there much longer. Off he ran like a madman, ignoring Henry’s warnings of “Don’t run near the horse——aw, shit.”

Too late.

The horse got spooked and started to buck. The bitch on his back was suddenly less than poised as she tried to get him to calm down. We all just sat there and stared, and then I had to turn away because I was laughing so hard. We’re all so incredibly irresponsible when it comes to that kid.

At least she wasn’t thrown off the horse, I guess.

III. This Is My Brother, Corey; He’s Color Blind

Since there still wasn’t a party happening, Corey, Danielle and Chooch sat down and colored some Star Wars pictures. Thank god for crayons and coloring books.

“You know I’m color-blind, right?” Corey asked me.

“What? No!” I replied.

“Yeah, I found out when I was like, 7 and got my first pair of glasses. The doctor was basically like, ‘You’re color-blind as fuck.’ I can’t believe you’ve known me for 21 years and didn’t know this!” Corey said, mock-offended.

Meanwhile, Chooch was chastising Corey for coloring Luke Skywalker totally wrong and I was like, “Dude doesn’t know his colors, Chooch. He can’t help it.” I tried to give Corey a sympathetic smile but I couldn’t stop laughing long enough.

Anyway, the point of Corey’s story is that his color-retardedness is affecting his ability to excel in one of his classes, so his adviser intervened and told the professor about Corey’s “condition,” at which point he was sent to the disability office and had to sit among suicidal students and a guy with one leg.

This was so ridiculously funny to me that I could not stop laughing and talking about it. All day long, whenever someone new would arrive (and yes, people did eventually arrive), I would introduce Corey as “my brother; he’s color-blind.” Show me your weakness and I will mock you relentlessly.

IV. The Butterscotch Blunder

People were finally beginning to arrive and Henry let me set out the pistachio pie (which was like spooning a cloud from Heaven into your mouth; I bet angels get breast implants made from this sweet fluff) but said that the butterscotch pie still wasn’t ready.

“Don’t touch it!” he barked preemptively when I made to open the weird helium-balloon looking cooler stowing the runny pie. “I just checked it and it still hasn’t jelled.” He tugged on his coller a little and then took another swig of his iced tea jug.

This pretty much went on all day, this dance around the reverse pie-incubator, until finally it was 6:30 and everyone had left with nary a slice of butterscotch pie (which is one of my all-time favorite pies and I haven’t had it in years because my mom doesn’t care enough about me to bake me one, but she’ll still bake them FOR HER EX-HUSBAND WTF). I was devastated. Yes, I had shoveled multiple varities of fruit- and cream-filled desserts between my oscillating lips, but there was a void that couldn’t be filled by any berry or Nutella. I needed that fucking butterscotch.

(Two pies came close though: Kaitlin made a black forest pie and then told Henry to suck it; and Laura’s fiance Mike baked one of the best apple pies with a crust soaked in some sort of sex nectar, I don’t even know but I think I may have broken a few laws with it in my mouth.)

V. The Park

Everyone is always bitching about how hard it is to find park pavilions, no matter what park we’re at, so fuck that: the next pie party will be at a strip club. Maybe then people will actually show up.

And then there won’t be any stink bugs to freak people out. Just crabs.

VI. Where’s the Avocado Pie?

Henry didn’t make the avocado pie this year and of course everyone was like, “Did Henry make the avocado pie?” No, Henry didn’t make the avocado pie because he was too busy fucking up the butterscotch pie.

VII. Pictures of People Eating Pie

Pie Eaters:

Me me me me
Henry and Chooch
Laura
Corey and Danielle
Robbie and Karen
Ron
John, Jennifer, Abby and Gavin
Nancy and her baby, Joey
Jamie and her baby, Crosby
Barb
Kaitlin
Sandy and Elena
Sean and Kylie
Joy and John
Kristen and her dog, Joey
Blake and Shannon
Henry’s mom Judy
Henry’s sister Kelly
Zac
Janna

Henry bought some sort of pie shower caps, except I thought he said they were for vaginas. I was so confused, but figured it was something he saw his ex using one time, so I didn’t question it.

I don’t think these kids stopped moving long enough to eat even a bite of pie.

WHAT WERE THEY TALKING ABOUT? It seems so intense.

Since it was an open house-type of party, people came and went all day. Henry kept trying to make everyone take pie home with them, because the pie:person ratio was totally ridiculous this year. There were some pies that hadn’t even been cut into by the end of the day. Was everyone on a diet this year?

We even considered handing off some pie to the picnicking pregnant family down by the porta john.

Joy’s fiance John asked me what started the whole pie party thing. When I told him that it was basically because I wanted pie and wondered how I could trick people into bringing me some, I think he believed me but I’m not sure. It’s kind of cool how much people enjoy pillaging a spread of pies in a park pavilion on a beautiful autumn day, though.

Probably frowning at Kaitlin’s black forest pie.

Laura actually likes having her photo taken, so she doesn’t care when I sneak up on her.

Overall, it was a great day, great weather, great pies, and great people. But by 6:00, I was writhing around and yelling WHY DID YOU LET ME EAT SO MUCH PIE!? because everything is Henry’s fault.

The next morning, Henry finally admitted that he fucked up the butterscotch pie, which had never jelled, not even after a full 24 hours. There goes your spot on the Food Network, Henry, you fuck-up.

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That Fucking Tomato

Epic Fail, Fire in the Kitchen!, Food, really bad ideas, Reporting from Work

Sep 152011

One of my co-workers called out to me from her office, “Do you like tomatoes?”

That’s a loaded question. I suppose I do like tomatoes, but only on certain occasions, in certain foods and sliced in certain ways.

But this was coming from a co-worker that I’m not very close with; not wanting to engage her any further by revealing intimate details about my dietary habits, I settled for a simple, “Sure.”

And then there she was, standing before me with a carton of cherub tomatoes.

“Here, take one!” she said eagerly, arms extended like she was handing me a birthday gift. “It’s like an explosion of flavor in your mouth!”

Stunned, I stuck one tentative hand beyond the plastic covering of the carton and right smack into the warzone of small red torture devices.

Never do I just EAT A TOMATO. Oh, I know all about you fools who shake some salt on those motherfuckers and eat ‘em like a goddamn apple. But that’s not for me. Put it on a grilled cheese, for sure, but someone gives me a whole entire tomato and it’s getting chucked for fun.

What a Normal Person Might Do:

Politely decline.
Pretend to have gum in their mouth.
Puncture their breast implant and run.

What Erin Does:

Accept the challenge.

I felt backed into a wall by then, anyway. My hand was already instinctively in the carton (actually, by this point, it was stuck in the carton; have you seen the gargantuan rings I wear?) so this was definitely the point of no return; and she was standing there all excited and wide-eyed, waiting to become Tomato Bros with me. I was willing to tell her what she wanted to hear just to make her go away.

It was the size of a fig, the one I withdrew. Instead of biting it, I sighed heavily and popped the whole thing into my fake-smiling mouth.

My molars squished into it and sent guts of the tomato gushing through my mouth; the wet, gelatinous texture made my sad tongue curl back in terror. This was definitely not a good time for my taste buds, or my gag reflex for that matter. I’ve had an easier time getting through reluctant, obligated blow jobs.

That’s about when the tang of bile began to slowly crawl up my throat like a geriatric geyser. I was still chewing and smiling while she stood there expectedly, praying that she doesn’t notice I’m dry heaving with zipped lips. And then of course, a veritable reel of disgusting images played out inside my mind, because why wouldn’t I want to think about:

snakes engulfing writhing rodents,
Snooki’s kooka engulfing writhing rodents,
Sarah Palin as President, and
Grandma Cleavage modeling her new Irish Snuggie,

while I’m hosting what I can only describe as Satan’s sour semen on the bed of my tongue.

The short version: It was yucky, you guys. :(

My body was trying to reject it into my cupped palms but she just wouldn’t walk away.

Someone else walked by and she turned to offer them their own cherub (who tossed it into his mouth like he’s some Huck Finn motherfucker, I might add; I might also add that his name is MITCH, the worst Facebook friend in the whole world, and you know why I can add that? Because HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW THIS EXISTS BECAUSE HE NEVER CHECKS IN WITH HIS STUPID FACEBOOK FRIENDS.), affording me a few seconds to openly cringe and emulate the No Bueno! grimace a baby makes when being force-fed organic mashed peas. I definitely didn’t want to swallow, so I tucked it behind my teeth, under my tongue, if I could have dripped it down into my bra, I would have; and then I choked out a strained, “It’s really good, thanks!” Like it would have killed her if I told her the truth, as if she grew this bitch in her own goddamn garden from seeds extracted from her loins. And then I couldn’t hold on to it any longer—I swallowed. I mean, it might as well have been a load of ejaculate so why the hell not?

“An explosion of flavor, right?!”

Yes, something like that.

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Popsicle Panoply

chooch, Fire in the Kitchen!, Food, Food Fun, Henrying, reviews

Jun 272011

If you see me at the grocery store, rubbing elbows with Domesticates and Elderlies sporting open wounds, then you know I have to be there for a very good reason. This girl don’t shop for food otherwise.

On this particular Saturday, the reason was: popsicles. REAL popsicles to be made using the Zoku Quick Pop maker that my aunt Susie got Chooch for his birthday. She said she wanted us to have it because she knew how much fun we had making chocolate lollipops together as one big happy 1950′s TV family and figured we’d also take great delight in preparing our own frozen treats as well.

I’m sure she also probably knew that no way was I going to settle for popsicles made solely of Everfresh juices. I wanted the gourmet shit that I saw on the Zoku website. Henry let me choose two recipes and then we went to the grocery store where I complained the whole time and had panic attacks every time I got too close to meats and people.

Grocery stores are gross, you guys.

Even though the recipes I chose only called for lemons and cantaloupe, I decided we needed many more varieties than just those two pedestrian fruits. I’m a sucker for melons and there was a pile of like, 6 different species. (Brands?) I couldn’t remember which I liked the best. Thank god Henry keeps track of these things (only because he knows better than to ever buy for a second time something I hate) and loaded a Santa Claus melon into the cart.

God those things are like pure, unadulterated candy.

We also needed exotic things, like AGAVE NECTAR, and I complained that the aisle housing these sweetening novelties smelled weird, like a Mexican abortion clinic, which triggered Henry’s official look of STFU Spoiled Bitch. Turns out AGAVE NECTAR is like honey for cooking snobs. (But what the fuck do I know about things that people buy as ingredients. I’m an eater not a cooker.)

(I may or may not have spelled out the word “AGAVE” every time I needed to say it because I don’t know how to pronounce it.)

Henry’s favorite part of having me tag along is when I hold up food products and ask, “Do I like this?”

“Not for $8.99 a pound, you don’t!” he spat when the item my delicate hands clutched was a bag of rainier cherries. This is how I learned that fruit is expensive. I have no basis of comparison when it comes to these things, especially since I was raised on fine food fare, so I will take Henry’s word for it. Especially after I said, “Wow, that was cheaper than I expected!” when the grand total came to $70-something and he nearly sliced out my tongue with his travel toenail clippers.

“This was all shit for popsicles and like, two frozen meals for YOU. Chooch and I got NOTHING,” Henry argued. Oh wah wah, go order a fucking pizza then. (He did, too.)

The popsicle maker comes with a fun face-maker kit, so I cut some bananas (the only fruit I sort of know how to slice) and started using the shapes to make eyes when Chooch pushed me out of the way and yelled, “I WANT TO DO IT TOO!” which made me yell back, “NO YOU’RE RUINING IT! HENRY, HE’S RUINING IT!” which made Henry yell, “OMG BOTH OF YOU GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN!” Henry was apparently doing the “important” part, which was actually mixing all the ingredients together so we could have something to even put the fruit slices in.

Henry is so smart like that.

I guess our sibling-like bickering was impeding Henry’s ability to properly mix up a batch of girly lemon cream, in which he added LAVENDER because he knows that’s my favorite flavor (not really, but close) and he’s been kissing up to me so I don’t pack a bag and GTFO, which is what I’ve been threatening to do lately. Oh go on, laugh. We’ll see if you’re still laughing when me and my hobo sack show up on your front stoop, asking to pitch a tent in your living room.

OMG I’LL NEVER BUY POPSICLES AGAIN

This Zoku thing is genius. You would think, since I had a hand in preparations, that at least the first few batches would come out looking like molten shit on a stick; maybe some would break off inside the machine; maybe at least one would have hemlock in it, making all of Henry’s wishes come true. But no, the inaugural batch and each one after turned out perfect. (Although Henry will argue that I jacked shit up when I tossed in a handful of Froot Loops to the cantaloupe mint mixture.)

Did I mentioned that after Henry diced it, I pureed that all by myself (after Henry showed me exactly which button to press and then hovered over me to make sure nothing fell in, like my face or a brick of cocaine)? Anything that is Erin-proof is a dream contraption. Go get one.

We had so much fun that I demanded we go to Williams-Sonoma that very same night to buy more sticks for the damn thing. Ours came with four and after making two of the lemon popsicles, it quickly became clear that we would need as many more as we could possibly get (though Henry said one box of 6 would be fine). I have never been inside of a Williams-Sonoma (what reason would I have?) but luckily, before I could break out into fear-of-cooking hives, Chooch led us straight to the Zoku display. At least he’s good for something.

We didn’t have the ingredients on-hand to make fudgesicles and Henry started bitching about not wanting to leave the house again, so instead he improvised and concocted something akin to frozen Mexican hot chocolate. I approved.

Chooch and I made striped ones today, ALL BY OURSELVES! Literally anyone can use this thing without fucking it up!

But seriously, the grocery store, Willams-Sonoma and then a trip to Home Depot on Sunday? No wonder I feel so suicidally disoriented today. At least my freezer is stuffed full of frozen wonders! (The popsicles, not sperm and phalanges.) The cantaloupe mint is my favorite. I’m going to go fellate one right now.

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Henry’s Worst Idea To Date: Homemade Lollipops

chooch, Epic Fail, Fire in the Kitchen!, Food, really bad ideas, Uncategorized

Apr 262011

Get fucked.

All the pre-school kids get to bring in treats on their birthday. Since there was no school on Monday, Chooch is bringing shit in tomorrow. I thought perhaps Henry could bake some cupcakes; Chooch suggested cookies.

But Henry went off on his own and decided to make chocolate lollipops. He bought three different sets of molds: pirates, dinosaurs and monkeys. Also procured were bags of white chocolate molding things, food coloring and paint brushes to help aid in a potential murder-suicide situation.

Because solid chocolate is too easy.

Before sitting down to “help,” I considered relisting* myself as “in a relationship with Henry Robbins” on Facebook so that I could re-breakup with him after fifteen minutes, because the two of us working side-by-side on anything involving food and arts and crafts is surely going to end with our home criss-crossed in yellow crime scene tape.

(*Technically, according to Facebook, I’m still single after Henry failed to take me roller skating Saturday night.)

Henry wasn’t even done setting up yet when Chooch spilled a jar of orange food coloring on himself THREE TIMES. This was partly because I was too busy perfecting my Negligent Teen Mom act and partly because no one ever listens when Henry says not to touch something, which would explain why I’ve found myself in so many philandering situations over the years.

So now my child looks like he was sired by Pauly D after a reckless night of beatin’ the beat in Snooki’s kuka with his spray-tanned guido venereal-rod. Have fun selling booty shorts on the boardwalk this summer, son.

Meanwhile, I managed to paint the miniscule crannies of a pirate skull, a pirate ship and two dinosaurs before completely flipping my shit.

“IT WON’T STAY MELTED!” I kept screaming at Henry, who would calmly tell me to “work faster.”

%&*%*^$*^%

Listen here, Wonka. Unless you want to see how fast I work when equipped with a sausage grinder and your dick in my hands, best BACK UP OFF ME.

Fifteen minutes — pretty lofty expectations on my behalf. I only made it ten before rage and a quickly diminishing temper had me demonstrating full-body palsy shakes before launching my paint brush into a death-spiral to Hell and stomping off to pout on the couch.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” Henry murmured, hard at work filling his molds with plain milk chocolate and not even bothering to PAINT THE FUCKERS LIKE HE WAS MAKING ME DO, while I yelled a bunch of vulgarity-drenched death threats to the entire institution of chocolate candy and made promises to insert leftover lollipop sticks into Henry’s asshole while he sleeps tonight.

He’s currently in the kitchen, making exaggerated motions of extreme harriedness while I sit here listening to Emarosa, loudly and with my feet up, because I have no obligations to fulfill. Life is good.

Enjoy yourself, bro. This was all your idea, remember? If it were my choice, I would gladly just jam a stick of Juicy Fruit in each of those little fucker’s mouths and be done with it.

God, I hate doing things.

Nothing says Happy Birthday like half-assed chocolate shit on sticks born from rage, dysfunction and pure, unadulterated hate for life. Eat ‘em up, kids.

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Prelude to the Preschool Halloween Party

chooch, Epic Fail, Fire in the Kitchen!, Food, Henrying, holidays, really bad ideas

Nov 022010

I had given Henry explicit instructions on what to get for the cupcakes while I was at work Thursday night. The plan was that he was going to bake them and then I would attempt to not look like an honorary member of The Dream Team while recreating what I saw in the last issue of Better Homes & Gardens (which somehow is delivered with my name on it, but Henry is always quick to whisk it from the mail slot before I throw it away).

When I came home from work, it was after 9pm and I quickly saw that Henry had not yet made the cupcakes.

“I’ll get to it,” he kept muttering.

I distracted myself by stuffing the treat bags with lame little Halloween party favors and candy. Then I panicked because I wasn’t sure if the game we had in mind was good enough, so I printed out Halloween mazes and stuffed those in the treat bags too. Goddamn children.

This took about fifteen minutes, start to finish. One could imagine how exhausted I was, having single-handedly carried this entire party on my back while Henry pranced around in his underwear.

Somewhere around 10:30pm, I found out that Henry had purchased red decorating gel instead of black. RED! I cornered him in the kitchen as he mixed the cupcake batter and laid into him for being so worthless, so stupid, so irresponsible, so UNRELIABLE.

We broke up for the second time that night, but he still put his big boy pants on and went back to the store in search of black decorating gel.

By the time he came back, I noticed that he also forgot the pretzel sticks/Frankenstein neck bolts.

“I just came back! I am not going to the store again!” Henry shouted.

I raised a knife.

We broke up again.

I know, I know: Erin, why didn’t you just go to the store yourself? And let that motherfucker win?! Never. Let me remind you that the fact I haven’t eaten meat since 1996 was born from my impenetrable stubbornness. My head, it is that of a bull. (And not just because I’m that ugly.)

“Just forget it!” I screamed. “Fuck the cupcakes! I just won’t take them!”

“Fine,” Henry mumbled, pushing past me and going to sit down on the couch.

“NO I’M JUST KIDDING WE NEED THE CUPCAKES OMG GET BACK IN THERE!” I yelled, heart rate up, left arm tingling. Ew I fucking hate parties. As Henry walked by to go back in the kitchen, I muttered, “But the cupcakes are going to look pathetic since you forgot the pretzels, good job.” I saw him tense up for a second, like he maybe was contemplating pushing me into the hot stove, but then he adjusted his Susie Homemaker ruffled apron and went back to ladling batter into the cupcake tray thing.

“Did you start cooking the spaghetti yet?” I asked. We needed a lot of spaghetti noodles for the stupid game that the other moms so thoughtfully left for me to come up with.

“Can I get through the cupcakes first?” he snipped, and we broke up again.

Around 11:30, the cupcakes were cooled off and it was time to start icing them. Henry mixed up a bowl of purple frosting while I struggled with the orange. I didn’t mix it well enough, so all the cupcakes I frosted had dark orange striations throughout them, and that’s on top of the sides I smashed in from gripping too hard.

“Look,” Henry instructed. “Turn the cupcake with your other hand so the frosting goes on easier.” But as usual, I ignored his tip and continued glooping on mounds of frosting before moving on to the frustrating task of smoothing that shit out.

I started to cry. Then I screamed, slammed down the cupcake I was working on, and marched out of the kitchen.

But not before breaking up again, followed by a death threat.

“You’re a fucking retard,” I heard Henry say as he examined the three cupcakes I managed to frost before having a full-blown temper seizure. I really believe that it takes a special kind of person to be able to work with sprinkles and frosting without winding with brain matter Pollacked across the kitchen wall.

I started to watch the Jersey Shore reunion show, mouth still molded into a scowl, until I realized that I couldn’t let Henry take all the credit for the cupcakes. And he would, too. I knew it. So I went back in the kitchen and pushed Henry out of the way. He had a plateful of large marshmallows which he had previously rolled through green glittery sprinkles. I picked one up and decided to start working on the Frankenstein heads, that maybe if I concentrated real hard on that, I could block out the fact that Henry was two feet away from me, making me hate life.

By then, it was midnight.

I did that high-pitched shriek that happens when something isn’t going my way.

“What?” Henry yelled.

“THIS BLACK GEL IS TOO THICK! THIS FRANKENSTEIN IS RUINED!” I hurled it into the garbage.

“Great,” Henry said sardonically. “Now we’re going to be short one marshmallow.” Turns out there was just enough green sprinkles for fourteen marshmallows, the exact number of kids in Chooch’s class. “If you weren’t being such a BITCH, I probably could have fixed that one,” Henry sneered and I wanted to skin him alive.

“Oh you think you’re so fucking perfect!” I spat. And we broke up so badly that I created a profile on Match.com.

Whoever lives in this house after us is going to be haunted by all the ire left clinging to the walls from our mutual belligerence. And that’s assuming we both make it out alive. Otherwise, someone might want to consider taking a wrecking ball to 3021 My Street.

Being short a marshmallow, I made the executive decision to only use half and do spiderwebs on the other cupcakes. Oh great idea, Erin Rachelle. Next time, maybe try to remember that you have an unsteady hand and SUCK at decorating.

How do you bitches make this look so easy?

I was standing over the oven, dragging a toothpick over these bastards, and GRUNTING. It was excruciating! You need precision for this shit. And precision and me? We’re not friends. We’re not even frenemies. In fact, if precision turned into a zombie, I’d push everyone out of the way so I could be the one to shoot it in the motherfucking head. Precision makes me cry, you guys. And I think I have arthritis now. I fucking hate you, too, spider webs.

I hate anything to do with baking! I hate frosting! I hate food coloring! I hate the kitchen! I hate Henry!

I do like licking the batter off that mixing contraption though.

The worst part is that I kept catching Henry trying not to laugh when my sanity was very clearly slipping through my fingers like sand through an hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

Of course, they looked nothing like Frankenstein and I had a failure-induced panic attack. Then I realized that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to have a variety.

“What if the kids start fighting because they all want one with a marshmallow head?” I freaked out.

“It’ll be a good lesson for them. You don’t always get what you want in life,” Henry said matter-of-factly. That’s great, but I didn’t want to be there when parts of Mr. Potato Head began flying as the kids fought each other with tinker toys and glue sticks and teachers staggered away with pencils jutting out from their femoral artery. You might be wondering what sort of impression I have in my mind of preschool classes. Obviously a very Mad Max, post-apocalyptic one.

It was nearly 1:00am by the time we finished decorating the fuckcakes. Henry and I slept in separate rooms.

FUCKERS!!!!

[Ed.Note: Henry can attest this is not an accurate account. It has been toned down. A lot.]

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go get your saliva sucked

Epic Fail, Fire in the Kitchen!, Food

Sep 222009

It was 11:30 PM. I knew it was a bad idea. Henry REALLY knew it was a bad idea. But there was a box of corn bread mix in the kitchen and I really wanted corn bread. Of course Henry was all, “Pendants or muffins, I can’t do both.” So I had the bright idea of baking that shit on my own while Henry toiled over resin at the dining room table.

The thing with Henry is that he acts like he’s whatever. Like, “Yeah go ahead, you do that; see if I care” but I KNOW that it KILLS him to hear me smashing shit around in the kitchen when there’s not a damn thing he can do about it. And then I had to ask him if vegetable oil and canola were the same and I could tell he wanted to march in, reclaim his kitchen, and whip up his own batch of delicate muffins from one of the yellowed index cards he keeps in a prized recipe box. But instead, he maintained a calm facade and continued making pendants while I raped and foraged the kitchen cabinets, scraped the top of my hand on a blender blade, and tried with little success to defend my eyeballs from imminent recipe-induced crossing. Recipes are only word problems in disguise, those fuckers.

After a lot of groaning, grunting, and “motherfuck”ing, I finally had all of my shitty batter (which unlike cake batter, does NOT taste good raw) doled out in what I hoped to be even allotments.

I was wrong.

fuckingmuffins

Oh but don’t worry, the nasty taste of the muffins completely overrode the size discrepancies. Not even the hearty fistfuls of sugar I dumped on top, pre-baking, could mask the bland dryness of these assholes. Henry even slid his plate away with more than half a muffin remaining. And he opted for the runt of the batch to begin with.

This morning, I decided to mix up some honey butter to help combat the dryness and add some sweetness. I mean, I fucking DRENCHED these bastards in the shit and they were still nothing more than glorified Southern saliva-suckers. Chooch, bless his heart, he tried to eat half of one, but in the end he decided to be honest and said, “I can’t like these. They’re not delicious.”

Fuck baking. Though I am still determined to bake a pie this weekend. And I think I have just the recipe.

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Sprinkles came to my house

Fire in the Kitchen!, Food, reviews

Jul 282009

Last week, I opened my front door to find a gigantic box from Williams-Sonoma perched at my step. First I panicked, because I knew I hadn’t consciously ordered anything from there and my grandma went through this phase where she was ordering shit from QVC in her sleep and what if that was happening to me now too? All of my family’s best idiosyncrasies, consistently delivered to me on the conveyor belt of heritage.

After hauling it inside, I was overjoyed to find, swimming near the top of the inflatable padding, a card that learned me it was an early birthday present from my friend Alyson. Two boxes were beneath all that, wrapped in pretty pineapple paper. THIS IS THE PART WHERE I LEARNED ALYSON BOUGHT ME TWO CANISTERS OF SPRINKLES CUPCAKE MIX WTF OMG!

(My tutu was still downstairs from the Blogathon bullshit, so I put it to work. It needs to earn its keep somehow.)

Seriously, what a fabulous gift for a cupcake snob the likes of myself. In the enclosed card, she specified that perhaps Henry could bake those fine ass bitches up during Blogathon and I thought, “Why, what a swell idea! Something delicious to feast upon while beating myself stupid in the name of charity, and also – fodder to blog about!”

Henry was gone most of the day last Saturday, partially under the guise of “doing me a favor” by keeping Chooch out of my hair, but I’m sure it was mostly because Henry is scared to be around me during Blogathon. And also because I had a ton of pictures I needed him to pose for and he wanted to prolong the inevitable for as long as possible.

When he WAS home, I hounded him. “What about the cupcakes? How about those cupcakes? It’s cupcake o’clock, you motherfucker, let’s go before I blow up your asshole with a stick of dynamite.” And each time, he would say those words that every child and Erin HATE: “In a little while.”

And then it was midnight and he was standing before me giving me some lame ass excuse about not having any butter in the house and Blake was all, “I’ll go down the street to the gas station—” at which point Henry made a threatening throat-slicing motion.

Perhaps he felt bad that I only slept for 4 hours after being up for 24, and I even weed-wacked that afternoon (can you IMAGINE), because the next day he actually made the vanilla batch without any whining and begging from me.

Of Sprinkles, I will say this:

The cake part was very MOIST (why do people hate that word? I love it. In fact, I’ve often considered it tattooed inside my lip) and sweet. I think Henry might have baked it too long because he is not as delightful with baked goods as he’d like The Internet to believe (he’s a really great cook though, I can’t deny that), and the edges were a bit crisp.
Henry does, however, make a bitchin’ frosting. But he wanted to try the recipe that Sprinkles provided, which was very delicious but entirely too sweet for more than a few finger-sweeps while it was still in the mixing bowl. It ended up, in my opinion, being too much once it was sexin’ the cupcake and my teeth screamed a little.
The signature candy bulls eye toppers they supply have no taste and I really wanted them to spark in my mouth like Necco wafers are supposed to but never did when I tried. I learned that when I was in elementary school, from one of the issues of Weekly Reader. I also learned that if one is unable to brush their teeth, eating a piece of cheese before bed is an adequate substitute. That’s why I always guiltlessly devour cheese before bed, even though I know I’ll be brushing my teeth. That is also why I’m 569 pounds. That is also why sometimes a cube of Monterrey jack dislodges itself from my chin rolls the next day and I think, “Shucks, where’d that come from?”
My opinion will not be cemented until I try the red velvet canister (because that shit is the best ever, I mean who came up with red velvet? Some poor bitch, that’s who. Some poor serf-bitch who entered a fief-wide contest, vassals ineligible, to win an opportunity to bake the Queen’s pre-beheading cake and THAT is what she came up with over top her kettle with all the rats scurrying around and nipping at her gangrened toes, and immediately she named it after the fabric from which she pretended her burlap nightdress was made, and seeing as it was the only entry that didn’t cause a palace-wide botulism outbreak, she won) and then also visit one of the bakeries in person and even then, my ultimate opinion will be based on whether or not I see Katie Holmes gormandizing one with my own two eyes. I think I will also ask to shadow the bakers because I’m still not entirely convinced that Tom Cruise isn’t using Sprinkles as a front to contaminate the world with batter-planted religious Rufies.
I will also need to try every flavor they make available to me. And that better be a wide selection, because don’t they know I’ll be slandering the shit out of them if I’m unhappy?
Please come to Pittsburgh. I have a feeling I might really want to have sex with you if we meet in person.

Henry went to bed before the cupcakes cooled, so I was in charge of the frosting station. Of course, I didn’t wait long enough and then bitched when all the frosting shifted around the head of the cake and then began to run down the sides like a souvenir from sloppy sex. What? I didn’t bash in the left side of it from groping it with my heavy beast-hands! It came like that.

THANK YOU, ALYSON! For remembering my birthday, and being such an awesome friend. <3

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Making Cookies From Bread

Epic Fail, Fire in the Kitchen!, Food, really bad ideas

Apr 142009

A few weeks ago, I sent out an urgent Tweet begging for advice on how to turn ordinary bread into delicious cookies. The general consensus was, “Honey,just toast it and sprinkle it with sugar & cinnamon.” This was no good, no good at all. “Nice try,” I thought, “but that’s just TOAST and probably the fanciest thing my mother ever made me for breakfast. So no.”

I was thinking about it again earlier tonight, and, feeling particularly ambitious, I exclaimed, “Hey, Chooch let me enter the kitchen and bake you up some cookies, child.” And he was like, “Hold on, I’m inviting viruses onto the computer.”

Let me break this down for you in Pretentious Food Blog-style, because I want to make sure everyone gets to experience this culinary delight.

FIRST, get out some slices of bread and tear it a new asshole. I used some sort of Roman wheat bread bullshit.
Pretend like you’re making boobs out of Play-Doh and roll your bread pieces up real good. You can leave the crust on; I did. For some.
Next, think of things that taste real good and sweet to you. (Preferably things that are not a part of someone’s anatomy, because I’m not so sure that would bake well and I don’t know any cannibals IRL to call up for advice. Unless Jeffrey Dahmer had a cookbook?)
Once you got some sugar plums dancing in your mind, rummage through the cabinets and see if you have that shit. In my case, I pulled out the SUGAR, CINNAMON and HONEY, what what. Do not overthink it with measuring apparati! JUST DUMP THAT CRAP IN A DIABETIC HEAP.
Roll your yeasty ballsacks into it. And now, roll the bread, too. Knead the fuck out of it like it’s the new sexual black dress of 2009. If you have to, think of the last porno you watched. Just get it done.

After you scrape the excess with your fingers and do some deep-throating, the bowl might look like this:

Oh shit, and at some point you should do that pre-heating thing. I wasn’t sure what to set the oven to, so I just cranked it all the way up. Like fast food, bakery edition. I’m unsure what # to make that step, but I have faith that you will persevere. Or have your purse severed.

6. Splat the accessorized balls onto a COOKIE SHEET. I didn’t do anything to the COOKIE SHEET because I wasn’t sure if I should use butter, oil, or parchment paper, so we went bareback for this one.

It might look like this when you’re done with that:

7. While you’re doing this culinary miming, let your child graffiti a dining room chair with Jesus band-aids. It keeps him from accidentally Plath-ing himself or adding things to your Etsy shopping cart, like a Santa’s Workshop wall-hanging.

jesus

8. Open the oven after two minutes to see how glorious and glistening your bonne bouche looks.(And yes, I called it that. Out loud. Coupled with kissing noises.)

9. Panic because the cookie sheet is missing from the oven; figure it must have been the basement-dwelling vagrant who thieved it when you were wrenching the knife from your child; realize you never put the cookie sheet in to begin with.

10. Put the cookie sheet in the oven.

11. Take it back out three minutes later because you have no patience.

12. If your teeth involuntarily twinge and ache just from the proximity, and it looks like the vagina of Jabba the Hut’s wife, they are baked.

jabbasvagina

13. Try to dislodge the confections from the cookie sheet; note that McGyver might want to add baked and unfurled honey into his superglue repertoire.

14. Do not be surprised when all of your hard work and ingenuity is summed up honestly by a three-year-old:

“This is not a cookie. This is toast. I can’t like that, dorkbitch.”

Apparently, Jesus I’m not. Though probably it would be better if I used different bread next time. And marshmallows. Why didn’t I add marshmallows.

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LiveJournal Repost: Next Time I’ll Just Buy Them

Fire in the Kitchen!, Food, Henrying, LiveJournal Repost

Mar 122009

Since last weekend was all about cucpakes and game night, I find it apropos to repost an old LiveJournal post about the same subjects. And hopefully sometime Capn’ Cusspants will let Mommy have a fucking minute to sit down and write about the recent game night. If not, Doctor Nyquil might have to make an appearance. (KIDDING.)

Originally posted January 21, 2007

Bathing in a tub of warmed pistachio pudding with buoyant sponge caked-rubber duckies.

Traipsing through a field of peanut butter-covered bubble wrap while Robert (or Elliott) Smith warbles love songs down golden rays of sunlight while perched on a nearby cloud.

Swimming in a chambord pie with lesbian mermaids.

These are the sensations I imagined would wash over me while I tackled the cupcakes last week. I did not feel any of these things. Instead, I felt tired, bored, agitated. All the things I normally feel when spending time with Henry.

First, he quickly talked me out of the “from scratch” mindset and set me free in the baking aisle of Giant Eagle, where I bought three boxes of cake mix and decorative thingies and neon food coloring. There was so much more I wanted to buy but I don’t know where to go to get the good baking stuff. I wanted to encrust my cakes with edible diamonds and sugared seaweed, but time was fleeting.

My cupcake-baking enthusiasm quickly waned as I struggled to mix the batter, but interest was regained when Henry took the blending-reins and set me free with a kitchen-full of ingredients to plop into each pocket. He lingered close-by, though, to make sure that everything I used was edible. Just because I had hoped to fill the innards with mud, grass, thumb tacks and soiled baby wipes, I guess. Henry was disgusted and even remarked that I have the audacity to wonder why I can’t keep friends. And here I thought it was because of my wicked mood swings and inability to trust!

Here is what I learned:

Cheerios shrivel and get very hard when baked
Fruit snacks don’t melt; they still stick to your teeth even after being baked into batter
Fistfuls of marshmallows should not be allowed inside a cupcake because then Henry has to use a knife to cut the finished product out of the pan. And then your guests think that one was nibbled on by your cats. And then you feel like shit because people think your house is unsanitary and they start holding cupcakes up to the light to inspect further.
Maraschino cherry sauce sinks and congeals at the bottom for a bloody good-looking finished product
Janna will eat her weight in cupcakes flavored with blueberry preserves, and won’t even notice that a well-concealed olive is awaiting her beneath a cap of green icing
Chopped dates blend into cake batter and come out the other end of the baking process undetected. Seriously, who ate the one with the dates? No one knows
When Henry urges me to only fill each baking cup halfway, I should listen

The next morning, Henry and I stood in the kitchen staring at two dozen un-iced cupcakes. We marveled over their non-uniformity and I grabbed the next box of mix.

“Whoa! Oh no. You are not making anymore. Are we looking at the same cupcakes here? You got two dozen disgusting cupcakes sitting here and let me tell you something: once your little friends find out what’s in them, ain’t no one going to be eating them. We don’t need any more cupcakes going to waste.”

I was enraged, yet relieved. Baking is tiring business, you guys. It’s not fun like it looks like on TV. I couldn’t even read the directions on my own. I tried, but words blended together and it started to look like a word problem which angered me because numbers just don’t belong in sentences with words because it makes my brain seize up a little. But I ate a lot (a lot) of batter and felt like it might have been my last day on earth.

So instead of boarding the baking train, we (read: Henry) whipped up some butter cream icing which was then separated into several bowls so I could get all Picasso with my food coloring.

“Just put like, two drops in,” Henry advised as I meat-fisted the small vial and sent at least fifteen droplets splattering into the icing.

We made purple (regular flavored), pink (amaretto), lime (almond), blue (marshmallow) and then I got bored and ditched Henry. He used this quiet time to concoct his own icing: bright green flavored with a hint of red pepper, which left a pleasant warmth in the mouth. It was my favorite, but none of the game night attendees noticed and had to be told what was happening. Sometimes I wonder if Janna’s mommy has to accompany her to the potty since Janna seems to need dialogue added to her every action.

“Now you’re passing a corn-studded turd through your anus. Here it comes! Plunk! That was the sound of it dropping into the toilet water! Now wipe yourself good, Janna. Front to back!”

Honestly. She probably didn’t notice the olive because I wasn’t giving her a play-by-play.

After I finished slathering my disfigured cupcakes, it was finally time to decorate them! Except that I didn’t give a shit anymore! I half-heartedly dusted each one with sprinkles and plopped a cherry on some of them. I was kind of over it. I mustered enough energy to impale two of them with toothpicks in order to create a two-story cupcake shanty.

It’s a shame really, because I had big plans of desecrating each iced dome with obscenities and unmentionables and maybe even using a piping bag to scrawl out some of Janna’s dirty secrets, but my belly ached from the fingerfuls of icing I had scooped out–behind Henry’s back–and jammed into the back of my throat like an orphan eating porridge. (I’ve been obsessed with porridge all weekend.)

I guess baking wasn’t the worst thing for me to find out I don’t mesh with. It could have been something dangerous, like knife-fighting. (Which isn’t to say that’s not a hobby I’ve flirted with in my head.)

For some reason, my guests actually ate all but five or six, forcing Henry to eat his words. There were several murmurings of “What is that sticking to my tooth?” but I really think that Henry’s delicious icing (ugh) overpowered my misuse of creative baking license.

Granted, two of my guests were stoned, but hey–I’ll take it.

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Proof the Child is Alive

chooch, Fire in the Kitchen!, Food

Feb 262009

puzzle

As Week Two draws to a close, I have in my head a list of things I am thankful for.

Wine
Puzzles that occupy Chooch
Ability to shut Chooch out when he starts whining in frustration over said puzzle
iCarly, for being one of the few shows that can keep Chooch quiet for the entire episode
Janna, who has babysat me numerous times while I in turn babysit Chooch
CVS, for being in walking distance
Wine
That I don’t own a gun (thankfulness on this tip is debatable and changes by the hour)
the convenient way tablespoons are marked on butter wrapper so idiots like me don’t have to panic
Wine
MTV reality shows
“Annie”,

a. because I forgot how much I love to emulate the theatrical warbling of raggedy orphans

1 . and this in turn gives Chooch a taste of his own obnoxious-coated medicine

b. it keeps alive my dream that the sun really will come out tomorrow, and by that, I mean a rich man will adopt me and it will be all “Henry who?” and you will see me tapdancing into the sunset, my friends.

Did something amazing yesterday, I did. I made cornbread on my own, and I only had to text Henry once for help. I even added real life corn into the mix (which tastes real good, by the way, salmonella be damned) and then, oh you will never believe this, while it was baking in the oven (yes, I made sure all the extraneous cookware was cleared out first. I learned the hard way when I still lived at home and attempted to bake cookies while a bag of missed crackers still sat in the corner of the oven-turned-pantry) I even took it upon myself to mix my own HONEY BUTTER. When it was done, I swiped a finger through it and exclaimed, “I did that!” which is the same thing Chooch says when he shits on the potty/Sharpies the wall/blows up the neighborhood with a homemade grenade.

And then of course, after all my slaving in the kitchen, Chooch was like, “Are you fucking kidding me, fool? I ain’t eating that shit.” Even when I tried to say it was cake, he backed away in horror and said, “I can’t like that.” Even when I lied and said, “Daddy made it!” he was like, “Uh, no, YOU made it. I watched you, retard.”

When Henry came home last night, I begged him to try some. He kept giving me excuses like:

I’m not hungry
I’m allergic
I don’t like cornbread
Look, you’re missing the Real World, omg!

But finally he conceded.

“It’s good right?” I asked expectedly. “I even put real corn in it. It’s like an actual Mexican made it, Henry.”

He said it was decent.

“Although….”

“What?” he asked, cornbread mastication ceased in apprehension.

“Well, the expiration date was from a year ago. But that’s probably OK, right? I mean, it tasted fine to me.”

He quit eating it after that, but swears it was just because he was full.

Whatever. I used fresh milk and eggs, at least. Besides, it said it was a SUGGESTED date. My personal suggestion was to use it yesterday.

febchooch

“Joke’s on you, mommy-asshole.”

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The French Toast Fight

chooch, Epic Fail, Fire in the Kitchen!, Food, Henrying, That I Hate, Things About Henry

Feb 202009

Last night was relatively calm for the most part. I was able to get Chooch interested in “Annie,” but I don’t think he was listening to my story about how I tried to orchestrate a reproduction of it in eighth grade and Jason Jones was going to play Punjab, but then my ex-friend Keri couldn’t take it anymore and kept deep six-ing my cast list. I think that may have had something to do with the fact that every time she would sleep over, I’d put the soundtrack on repeat.

My love for Annie runs deep, like a stream of piss in Hell’s urinal.

I had him in bed by 10:30 (early for him, believe me) but then Henry had to come in the house like a fucking bumbling burglar and Chooch was all, “Huh? Daddy’s home?” and then it was stomp-stomp-stomp down the stairs, at which point his mild mood completely mutated into whirling dervish mode and he started throwing toys and spilling apple juice. And I took no part in it. I stared emotionlessly at the TV and mumbled, “He was fine all night. You make him turn into an asshole. He’s all yours, have a ball, Daddy.”

I had scheduled a phone call with my new friend Jessi. When you’re raising a hellion, phone calls can no longer be fielded at whimsy. And it’s always fantastic when you have to tell people, “Don’t call me until after 11pm” because you know it’s going to sound like Oakland rioting in the house up until then. Fortunately, when Jessi called, Chooch and Henry had at least taken their screaming show upstairs, but the ruckus was still jarring enough that I had to strain to concentrate on parts of the conversation. I could hear Henry shouting, “Get back in bed!” and Chooch answering from across the hall, “No way!” and then devilishy laughing and chucking what sounded like boulders out of his crib. Finally, it quieted down (apparently Chooch ended up falling asleep in our bed while I was still on the phone and Henry had no idea. We make a great parenting team) and I was able to enjoy a grown-up conversation with a really cool girl.

Today, I woke up and remembered, “Fuck, I promised I’d make French toast for breakfast.” I can’t remember why exactly I promised, what horrendous activity I was trying to bribe the child to quit, but I do know that he reacted well to the bribe and was, for the most part, a decent human being last night. And when I promise him things, I make sure to follow through because the last thing I want is to be like my own mother. (That song “Promises, Promises” by Naked Eyes? ALWAYS makes me think of her.)

So I google “easy french toast” and only 68798097 results turn up, oh lucky day. Quickly, I become confused. Every recipe is different. One says one egg and two slices of bread, another says 2 eggs and 6 slices of bread. I’m not even in the kitchen yet and I’m in tears.

But I did it. Sort of. I mixed all the shit together and became mildly frustrated at the way the cinnamon melded into a curdled skin with the milk. I didn’t know exactly what “grease the pan” meant, because that was so vague. So I wiped it with canola oil. That didn’t seem greasy enough, so I sprayed it with Pam. Finally, I caved and plopped some fucking butter up in that shit and marveled at the sizzle.

The first piece, thank God I tried it before serving it to Chooch, because it was wack. Totally raw. The pieces that followed were not much better, but I felt confident that the eggs were no longer raw. One piece actually had a little scrambled egg hanging off it like a breakfast dingleberry. It was cute, but tasted absolutely disgusting.

I let Chooch and myself ingest several bites. But I noticed that there was something terribly off with them, so I said, “Er, maybe we should not eat anymore, Chooch.”

And then Henry came home. Scraps of evidence remained on both of our plates, and Henry asked, “Did you cook it enough?” as he held up a piece tentatively between two fingertips, like he was trying to spy the contents of his cheating wife’s mail.

“I’ll tell you right now what you did, you used too much milk.” He said it in that superior “I watch Alton Brown” tone that makes me want to castrate him sometimes, with an Alton Brown-approved cutlery set. But then, sniffing the kitchen, he added, “You caught it on fire, didn’t you?” And then, upon further inspection of my damning trail, he yelled, “Tell me you did NOT use this metal spatula on my non-stick pan!!!!??”

Later, after he was sure that Chooch and I weren’t going to need our stomachs pumped of swirling raw eggs, Henry tried to reason with me. After eight years, he still tries this sometime. It’s kind of adorable.

“You know, cooking’s not that hard. Your problem is that you rush. You want it done NOW.”

“Well, duh. Why else would there be the high setting on the stove, if not to help me cook things as fast as possible?” And Henry did this thing where he holds up to his hands in a silent prayer, like he’s telepathically asking some entity to please provide patience.

Finally, I snapped, “Look, cooking is not fun for me. I DO NOT LIKE IT. I do not get joy from rooting around the refrigerator for ingredients, I do not like the way my head feels when struggling to read a sentence that contains words AND numbers, and I absolutely do NOT enjoy standing in front of a stove wondering when this shit is going to be done.”

I don’t care if I suck at this. I do not like to cook, not here not now not then not there. And if it takes me writing it out Dr. Seuss-style to get it through his head, then I will gladly work on that shit this weekend. That is, after I bathe in a tub of vodka and have a harem cater to me. “That’s right, you drop that tab in mama’s mouth, just like that.”

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TIMES, THEY ARE A’CHANGIN’ (Now, Get Me a Noose)

Fire in the Kitchen!, Food, Henrying, Shit about me

Feb 162009

Something wonderful and terrible happened all at once: Henry got a second job. He starts today, at 3 and won’t be home until 11. This is awesome because hello, we need the money; but it’s tragic because it means I have to cook dinner for Chooch and myself EVERY NIGHT NOW.

I don’t know how to cook, remember? Not only that, but I don’t LIKE to cook.

I told Henry, “Son, you better do like all those good working mommies do and start freezing some shit.” So last night, he toiled away over a big cauldron and before I knew it, the fridge was stocked with small plastic containers of soup. “This should get you through until at least Wednesday,” he said, and I could tell by the way his voice was strained that he’s worried about this too, like he’s going to come home one night and find Chooch and I in an emaciated heap by the corner, being pissed on by cats mistaking us for rugs.

“I’ll freeze some spaghetti sauce, too,” he said on second thought, coming back from whatever faraway vision of horror he was screening.

When he came home from his first job today, he was in the kitchen stocking up the salad bowl for me. I came up behind him, gave him a desperate hug and whispered, “It’s like, the end of an era.”

“WHAT era?” he asked. The era of home-cooked meals, Henry. The era of not having to touch the stove, ever.

Oh my shit, I’m going to miss that fucking man.

I can make cheese sandwiches (not grilled cheeses, though; that’s one step up from the three-year-old skill level I currently maintain), sometimes pasta but that’s pretty inconsistent, mac n cheese but Henry worries about the nutritional value when I get “creative” with it, and scrambled eggs but Henry worries that I will poison Chooch. I feel like there’s something else I can make but I can’t think.

Basically:

anything that can be cooked in the microwave
anything that can be toasted
anything that is ready to serve straight from a box
anything that doesn’t require SLICING
take out, though I’ve been known to fuck that up too on occasion

So, what I’m asking is for good, nutritionous and EASY (read: Erin-proof) recipes that I can confidently prepare for Chooch and myself. I don’t eat meat so I don’t know how to cook that shit. Please help.

And if anyone local feels like showing up on my doorstep with a crock pot full of vegetables, hope, and a grandmother’s love, I might be inclined to invite you in.

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Salad S.O.S.

Fire in the Kitchen!, Food

Jul 082008

I’m looking for awesome salads. I’ve been eating salads for lunch every single dingdong day since like, mother fucking piece of shit April, and I’m burnt out. BURNT THE FUCK OUT. I’m tired of alfalfa sprouts and garbanzo beans. The flax seed stays, though.

I need options. Something exotic, erotic and mind-bending. Something without meat products.

Tell me how you make your salads. Give me secret family recipes. Anything that involves vodka and porn is a plus.

Otherwise, I’ll fall back on cheese sandwiches and get all bloated.

Things I do not like in my salads:

beets
radishes
onions (sometimes those purple fuckers are ok)
tomatoes (unless they’re cut up all tiny)
carrots, unless they’re as shredded as the jeans on the collective ass of 1980s heavy metal
dressings that do not include oil and vinegar
broccoli
urine

I really like ingredients that are not only hard for Henry to procure, but also hard on his wallet. And then I’ll write up some reviews maybe and possibly become a salad expert and get to do some whoring on Food Network.

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