Culinary Disaster, I Haz One.

[midnightsjane]

Every cook has one, sooner or later. Tonight was my turn. I decided to make a kugel (grated potato, onion and carrot mixed with egg and bread crumbs, topped with grated cheese and baked) for dinner, with an eye to having leftovers for my supper tomorrow. Mixed it all together, popped it in the oven and waited; it smelled good, looked okay, but when I cut it into squares and lifted it up to put on the plate it fell apart. No big, still edible..until I put a forkful into my mouth. OMG. When did I dump the entire salt shaker into the mix? It was SO oversalted I almost gagged. Tasted it again, just to make sure. Yup, culinary disaster indeed. The whole thing got tossed into the compost bucket. So much for dinner.

On to plan b: pasta with canned sauce. Not fancy, but pasta rarely disappoints me.

This isn't the absolutely worst thing I've ever cooked, but it comes damned close. Usually if a dish doesn't come out the way I envisioned I can somehow rescue it, but this was definitely a no way loser. :sigh:

I just hate throwing food out, it's such a waste. But sometimes, that's the only thing to do. One good reason that I never cook something for the first time when company is coming! I remember one time making a new recipe for friends, and being so embarrassed when the portions were really tiny, in spite of what the cook book had said. Best to test it on myself first.

Heh.

Other than the dinner mishap, it was a good day. Went out to the farm, cleaned a couple of stalls and the paddocks, said hello to my horses, scored some pumpkin tarts courtesy of our boarder Kim, thankyouverymuch.

Also managed to get up to the Library and find some new books to read, hurray!! Came away with the newest novel by Ann Perry in her William Monk series Acceptable Loss, a couple of books by Mercedes Lackey, Gwenhwyar and Trio of Sorcery and a new author for me, Sara Douglass with her new book The Devil's Diadem. As well, one of the Pern novels written by Anne McCaffrey and her son Todd, Dragon's Fire. It's so great to have books I haven't read and reread a hundred times! Hurray for the public library system.

Off to read now.

Comments

[ranunculus]

I have -boxes- of books... Want them? I think I could put a couple of nice book packages together, maybe a dozen or two books? Paperback. Do you have other favorite authors besides McCaffrey and Perry?

How about:
Patricia Bray
Juliet Marillier
Emma Bull
Kristen Britian
T.A. Pratt
Tamara Siler Jones
Celine Kiernan
or
Rowena Cory Daniels

If my rather dim memory serves: the book co-written between Anne and Todd is ok, but run away from the one written by Todd solo. It's awful.

[midnightsjane]

Thank you, that is very kind of you. I am okay right now; I have a very good Public Library just up the street, so I will look for some of the authors you mention. I haven't read any of them except for Emma Bull, so it's nice to have some new names to check out!
I did try the Todd solo book, but you're right..it's awful. I really like McCaffery's earlier works, but she's not as good now..still, I do enjoy the Pern books as mindless entertainment

[ranunculus]

I read a lot of new authors. Grew up reading Heinlein, Asimov, McCaffery, Norton, De Lint and others. The selection I mentioned in the e-mail was just what is on hand in my discard pile. Let me think for a couple of days and I'll send a list of things you might like for "mindless entertainment", something that I think is VERY important.

[midnightsjane]

Cool! I've been going through my bookshelves, rereading a lot of the books I have had for years. It's fun to rediscover books I had forgotten about.
Have you read any of Guy Gavriel Kay's stuff? If you like DeLint, you'd probably like Kay.

[ranunculus]

I think I've read everything Guy Gavriel Kay wrote. I liked it a lot even with the overt Christian themes.

Ok, here are a few more names. Some you may know well...

Robin Hobb, whose writing I adore, but get really frustrated at the lack of real endings. To make up for lack of endings I think characters sparkle, and physical descriptions are lovely.

Katherine Kerr, who has been around forever with the Deverry novels. Her stuff suffers the same non-ending issues, but also makes characters live on the page. In her new series, the Nola O'Grady series, she did a better job with ending the first book. I thought it was a dandy, light read. Just bought the sequel "Water to Burn".

I really liked Sherwood Smith's book "Inda" then thought the series slipped into mediocrity. Didn't stop me from just buying the brand new Coronets and Steel which is a new world.

Patrick Rothfuss has written a fabulous book called "The Name of the Wind". It has been out for a while. This book is in my top 10 or 15 of all time. Took the author something like 4 years to write the sequel. Donald and I have been reading the two books out loud, and enjoying them, though the second book seems to be mostly setting up and not a lot of action.

I love Elizabeth Moon - most of the time, I really liked her Paksenarrion trilogy, dark as it is. However the book I have liked the best is "The Speed of Light", a book that has an autistic pov character. Moon's son is autistic. If you haven't run across it yet it is well worth a read.

Rachel Neumeier has written a trilogy called "The Burning Sands". Each book written with a different pov character, sometimes on different sides of the central issues, all of whom are dealing with the same events, or the result of the same events.

Ok, that's it for today.
Note: It is all your fault that I ran out at dinner break to the SF/Fan bookstore and -had- to buy new books. Smile

[mamculuna]

Loved Gwenhwyar!

Sometimes you just have to toss a disaster...and if your karma is pumpkin tarts, clearly you did the right thing.

[midnightsjane]

Oh, now I'm looking forward to reading Gwenhwyar.
Pumpkin tarts were very tasty!