I’d promised to do some cooking for a family event this past Sunday. A little thought and planning during the week left me with a nicely-paced schedule for calmly and methodically proceeding through all the cooking during the first part of the weekend, ending with a triumphant delivery of the goods on Saturday evening.
Except then it turned out that Friday evening presented me with a window of exactly 3 hours between oppressive humidity and a week of rain - so I needed to hit a lick at my really shaggy grass. (“Shaggy” doesn’t particularly bother me, but “shaggy left to enjoy five days of rain” becomes more than I can handle.)
I flew home from work, donned some grubbies, and proceeded to mow as if all the hounds of hell were pursuing me. Then I drank copious amounts of water and collapsed onto the floor in front of the fan - which is pretty much where I spent the rest of the night. No shopping, no prep work.
So much for calm and measured - I started my Saturday already behind the eight ball.
Meaning I rushed - and in rushing, nearly fumbled the whole game.
It started with the sheets of meringue. They were scheduled to go in first, early in the day, since they had to cook on a low heat for a long time. But I didn’t have enough eggs to “bake first, shop later” so I had to brave the grocery store at an ungodly hour, with not nearly enough caffeine in me. But that’s okay. I wasn’t exactly on schedule but I’d factored in some wiggle room - I should be fine.
Except that I had bad oven karma and the heat got set too high. Not only did I end up completely torching the meringues, but I’d also managed to get a bit of plastic bag stuck to the bottom of one of the cookie trays before I slid it into the oven and there were lovely abstract blue swirls dripped all over the meringue below. Which in and of itself might not have been so bad, since I was already tossing the blackened mess - but a veritable plethora of polymer stalactites still dangled tantalizingly from the oven rack, which meant I had to pause to clean. (Hopefully, without festooning myself with molten plastic.)
Fortunately, luck was with me. I managed to safely clean the oven and get the entire burnt/melted/smelly mess thrown out, all without injury or incident. Sighing heavily, I washed off all the bowls and beaters, re-drew my circles on fresh parchment paper, separated more eggs, and began again.
“Meringues, take two” went into the oven.
I then returned to the no-bake cookie bites I had left half-way through preparation when I paused to investigate the smell of burning sugar. By now, the mixture had “rested” for a bit too long and the strata between wet and dry ingredients had turned to an edible concrete strong enough to bring my blender to its knees. Fortunately, the challenge could be met with a bowl and manual labor but still... the amount of physical exertion required to wrangle the mix into submission was fairly astonishing. (But I get bonus points for not sweating into the dough!)
Mixture reintegrated and rolled, the no-bakes were finished and I moved onto some shortbread cookies. Those went together without any trouble (!) and went docilely into the fridge for chilling. (!!)
I was now at the half-way point, so I gave my meringues a quick check - and discovered they were already Almost Burned Again. Sputtering with annoyance (I’ve made these plenty of times before and never had this kind of trouble,) I eyeballed them quickly and decided I’d caught things just in time, so I snapped the oven off and left them for the final hour of drying. (This was particularly good since I was now completely out of both eggs and sugar and would have had to run to the store again before I could continue, otherwise.)
Most of that drying hour was spent washing yet more dishes (déja vu all over again) and cleaning up the disaster formerly known as countertop.
Then it was time to pull the shortbread out of the fridge for slicing - only to find that each pull of the knife released a slice of cookie that immediately crumbled into chunks. (Guess I shouldn’t have tossed in those couple of extra spoonfuls of almond flour that were left in the bag, after all.) By now, I had reached that numb stage of disbelief where you just sigh and keep going. So, I gathered and pressed the chunks back into rounds (they held!), then got the cookies laid out on the tray and into the oven without further ado. They turned out fine, praise be. (*phew!*)
The baking portion of the day was now over, albeit much, MUCH later than I had intended. Just more dish washing, then I’d finish up by cooking the ice cream mixture that would make magnificent use of the egg yolks.
Except - I had twice the egg yolks now - and egg yolks don't keep well.
Another plan was needed…
I scoured the fridge and considered my options. I finally decided on a veggie frittata - let the grating begin! I got everything together and onto the stove… and my phone rang.
It was the event hostess. She wouldn’t know until a couple of hours before the event but did I have enough potatoes on hand to make a potato salad if it turned out they needed one?
Well, sure. But two hours is not enough notice for producing a decent potato salad. Potatoes take a while to cook, they have to cool enough to handle, and the salad really needs time for the flavors to meld.
Plus, frankly, I flatly refused to heat another burner or dirty another pan the next day. So, I chose the “safe than sorry” route and put a pot on to boil and started scrubbing potatoes. (Because, you know, I hadn’t washed enough things yet that day…)
And I STILL had the ice cream to go!
It was 8 o’clock at night before I finally finished the last of the cooking and cleaning up.
I was hot, dehydrated, with sore feet, and let’s not even discuss the condition of my hands…
Fortunately, the event was lovely and made it all worth while.
Or mostly, anyhow. (Anybody want some potato salad?)
