Sunday, August 26, 2012

Bad Day 47--Is something burning?

Child 2 objects to sparkles on her bum. Child 1 has these super cute skinny jeans that no longer fit her that Child 2 would look adorable in, but she won't ever wear them. I told her they would make her bum look cute, Child 3 chimed in with jeans with nothing on the pockets make your bum look smaller. (Why my 9 year old knows this fact is beyond me.) So I said that Child 2's bum was perfect and she didn't need it to look smaller. And then she said but I don't want it to sparkle! I guess I can see why that might make someone uncomfortable but it does mean that we will have to go shopping for jeans this week. Oh darn.

Tonight, I burned the dinner. OK, it didn't actually burn but it almost burned and it was a little well done and I don't like well done roast beef, so it was a failure, even though everyone said it was delicious and they all ate it anyway. I haven't burned a dinner in years, so even almost burning it feels like a failure. I mentioned that when I first married Husband he hated everything I knew how to cook and I am not exaggerating about that. It was extremely frustrating because I had to learn how to cook new things all on my own and we didn't have any money, and the secret that no one tells you about cooking is that it is SO much easier to make an expensive cut of meat taste delicious than a cheap one and as a result, we had more than a few shoe leather like pot roast dinners.

The other secret, which isn't really a secret because every chef will tell you this if you ask (even if they are hawking their own brand of cheap cookware at Target) is that expensive pans also make a difference. For years, I made roast beef in a Pyrex baking pan and this is wrong wrong wrong. Don't do it! Because when you make it in a real roasting pan, the vegetables caramelize and turn out creamy. That's the only way to describe onions, carrots, and potatoes that melt in your mouth. I discovered this only a couple of years ago when I finally broke down and bought a real roasting pan because I was tired of the stupid disposable aluminum ones that are really just a grease fire waiting to happen because the moment you tug on it to pull it out of the oven, turkey grease pours out all over and starts the burners smoking and sets off the smoke alarm and then The Dog barks and the children start crying and you are swearing because you've burned your hand and it's not a fun way to cook Thanksgiving dinner. Also, you can't make gravy directly in it and it is a huge pain to dispose of and it can't be good for the environment.

So I bought a pan from Williams & Sonoma and I love it. LOVE it. See, it's even pretty. Look at those graceful handles.


If Husband ever divorces me and takes off with some blonde bimbo and we have to divide up the household goods, he is not getting that pan. It is the only thing I would seriously go to the mat for. OK, besides the children. But not The Dog. He can have The Dog. Anyway (no, Children, there is no divorce. That was a joke, OK? I'm sorry you don't find it funny. Stop crying. No, seriously!) I love the roasting pan and it has upped my roast beef from merely excellent to the sublime. But tonight, I stupidly put the temperature up too high because I wasn't paying attention and I thought it was supposed to be cooked at 425, and really it was 325, so dinner browned very quickly and got a little over done. But it was still delicious, but not sublime, but at any rate way better than anything Husband can get in Afghanistan, so he wasn't complaining and they still ate every last carrot and all the onions, and the children claim they don't like onions, but they eat these, so now do you believe me about how amazing the pan is?

The nurse who threw away a perfectly healthy kidney is having a worse day than me. A man was donating his kidney to his brother, which is a lovely, wonderful thing to do, and a nurse threw it out with the medical waste making it impossible to transplant into the brother who really needed it. And now the hospital has suspended all organ transplants until they figure out what went wrong. I'm sure the lawsuits will begin tomorrow and that nurse will be at the center of them. So thank you, incompetent nurse, for reminding me to be grateful for two working kidneys and to be careful about which hospital I choose if I ever need to donate one to my brother.


3 comments:

  1. I've had that pan for 10 years and it's still amazing. Totally amazing. Yay for roasting!

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    1. I know! I wish I had known about it years ago. It's the best way to make kids like vegetables. Mine will even eat peppers roasted in that pan.

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  2. Love it. I am so glad you told me about your blog. I don't know where you find the stories about people having a bad day, but I am glad you do!

    Jamee

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