Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Confession Wednesday: Kitchen Confessions
The kitchen.
Some love it. Some hate it. Some have no idea what to do with it.
Are you the Martha Stewart of Suburb Lane?
Or does the very task of boiling water strike fear into your heart?
I love cooking--when I have the time and the counter space to do it. But, once in awhile, disastrous things happen when a recipe card is shoved into my hands...
It was a lovely autumn afternoon in St. Lambert, Québec.
The leaves were changing, the weather had cooled, and it was a perfect day for community service at the local nursing home where we spent a few hours every week, helping the elderly and infirm with activities. Usually card or board games, sometimes wheelchair dancing.
On this particular day, the coordinator had something else in mind. Something new and exciting and fun.
A baking project.
Apple cakes.
I'm generally not a fan of baked apple anything. Pies? Gross. Turnovers? No thanks.
But cake? I was intrigued.
(I don't remember the coordinator's name, but for the ease of telling the story, I'll just call him Jean-Luc.)
So Jean-Luc handed me the recipe and I looked it over. It was entirely in French. Not a problem since I was nearing the end of my eighteen months in Québec. While I still struggled to communicate effectively with the crazy dialect that is québecois, reading French was something I had been fairly proficient at all along. So I confidently translated the recipe as we went.
The group was large, so we had to double the recipe. That was easy since I was also fairly proficient in basic arithmetic.
(Yes. Including fractions.)
Twenty minutes or so into the project, we ran out of flour. Jean-Luc told us where to find more and we carried on.
Another ten minutes went by and he needed flour, but, again, we were very short.
Doubling the recipe had taken nearly all the available supply.
Jean-Luc was perplexed.
I showed him the card. "You said to double it. We had to use four cups."
He took the card from my hand, thought for a minute, and then laughed until tears ran down his cheeks.
My companion and I looked at each other. "I know I translated the words right," I insisted.
Jean-Luc laughed for nearly a full minute before he composed himself enough to thrust the card back into my face.
"You DID translate the words right," he said between breaths, wiping his cheeks with a handkerchief. "But this 'C' right here?"
"Yeah. Four Cups of flour."
"It means 'cuillère'! The capital C is for Tablespoons!"
Unfortunately, we had to leave before the cakes came out of the oven.
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That's too funny! I have SO many kitchen disasters that I have since given up on anything that doesn't come from a box. Lucky me... Ryan does all the cooking AND the dishes:)
ReplyDeleteI tried to make hard boiled eggs once, and ended up buying pre-hardboiled eggs because I kept ruining them!
ReplyDeleteI love stories of kitchen adventures gone awry. My kitchen confessions usually just involve overeating.
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ReplyDeleteThat's hilarious! Ahh, Quebec nursing homes! I can cook up some good blog stories on the same topic! :)
ReplyDeleteGreat topic and another classic story from Karen! I would have done the same thing too...scratch that, I would have been lost. I don't know French! I'll think on this and post a confession soon...I haven't joined in for a while. Gotta get back in the groove!
ReplyDeleteThat's so funny. I spend as little time as possible in the kitchen, but I do have a recent story to tell. I was making the cheese and sausage dip which called for evaporated milk. I accidently used sweetened condensed milk instead. NASTY! Oh well. I learned my lesson. There is a difference between the two.
ReplyDeleteI really love to cook. And reading this reminded me that I haven't cooked much since moving back home (two years now). I miss it!
ReplyDeleteMy kitchen confession is that I suck in the kitchen and every time I make anything I have to call my poor mother multiple times with very dumb questions.
ReplyDeleteYeah...the time I made lovely dinner rolls for our first Thanksgiving in our new home. Yeah, I forgot the yeast. We now fondly refer to them as the hockey pucks we had for Thanksgiving that year. Funny how that was the most memorable Thanksgiving that EVERYONE remembers! Ü
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh, that is hilarious, Karen!!!!
ReplyDeleteOh dear! I bet that cake was not so yummy. I guess my kitchen confession is that I make way too much stuff from boxes. If it has a "Helper" in it, I'm all for it. And I do know how to cook. It's just easier to get "help."
ReplyDeleteoh that is funny!
ReplyDeleteI can take it or leave it when it comes to cooking. I'd rather bake and make desserts! :-)
Too funny!
ReplyDeleteOnce, (and take into mind that I was 10 years old) I made my mother pancakes for breakfast. Only I used baking soda instead of baking powder and salt instead of sugar. Anyone who said it's the thought that counts had not tasted those horrific pancakes.
I'd have had to stick around and see what an apple cake with that much extra flour looked like!
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