blogger profile

Sarahthequeen05

I am a spunky 25-year-old living in a suburb of Tampa. I was relocated here with my husband of 2 years from western North Carolina when the Air Force decided that we were needed in sunny Florida! I had almost all the best times of my life at Salem College in Winston-Salem, NC, the oldest women's c...

READ MORE

Nudity Vs. Cooking

Last night was perhaps the most humiliating night of my entire life.

The time that we were running late to one of my ballet competitions and my mom and two other mothers (whom I didn’t even know) stripped me down and changed me into my Swan Lake costume in the lobby of the Asheville Civic Center in front of God and everybody was pretty awful.

The time I visited the OB-GYN for the first time when I was in high school and I realized, as I looked at him over the tops of my knees that I was still wearing my green horizontal-striped knee socks and absolutely nothing else was just terrible.

The time that there were no paper towels in the bathroom at one of our college fandangos and my friend wiped her wet hands on my strapless J. Crew cocktail dress with such a vigor that it was pulled down to my waist and I effectively flashed a number of Fort Bragg army boys and random underclassmen whom I barely knew was indescribably embarrassing.

The time when I was getting an upper-GI barium test on the Air Force base and the Airman who appeared to be about 12 was helping me turn on my side on the table and I accidentally showed him, his slightly senior counterpart, and the Indian radiologist my thong from Vickie’s Secret that said “Wish you were here” was face-reddeningly horrible.

But all these were nothing compared to last night, I am ashamed to say.  Apparently, nudity doesn’t mar my soul as deeply and painfully as bad cooking does.  I’m still trying to decipher what the greater meaning is in all of this.

I am not an awesome cook.  Every now and then, I pick something out of Gourmet or Southern Living and it turns out just like the glossy photograph.  Or, I experiment and serendipitously come up with something nearly like Gourmet or Southern Living food.  Most of the time I am an average cook, consistently turning out basic, boring meals.  And, I am ok with this.  I don’t need food glory to be a whole person.

Or, at least I thought I didn’t. 

Last night I made something so awful that after about 3 bites each, Hubby and I looked at each other,  turned back to our plates, and wordlessly put our forks down.

It was only spaghetti.  Not even the kind of spaghetti where I must trudge out to my garden and harvest the tomatoes and onions and garlic and basil, prepare them with the care that a mother shows to her first born, then slowly cook the sauce for hours to achieve culinary perfection, all while praying to the Italian food gods that it WILL be perfect.  No, this was from a jar.

I effed up spaghetti sauce from a jar, there’s no other way to say it.  I’m pretty sure this is the true mark of a wretched cook, second only to not being able to boil the pasta itself.

I’m not even sure how it happened.  I browned the turkey, (I don’t eat red meat), seasoned it like I always do, added the same sauce I always use, and simmered it for about 45 minutes. 

And it was awful.  Seventh-circle-of-Hell awful.

I mean, Hubby can live off MREs and DFAC food and he couldn’t even choke down more than a few bites.  My nausea, which was finally better after a week, returned, and I was unable to eat anything for the rest of the evening.  It actually made me physically ill to the point where I had to force-feed myself extra-strength TUMS and lie down.

There was too much salt, which is usually a problem that I do not have, since I don’t like nearly as much salt as Hubby.  Then, there was practically no sauce, even though I had simmered it with the lid on.  There were many other facets to what made it so heinous that I couldn’t even identify.  I think that’s because they were pure evil, the likes of which cannot truly be described by mere mortals.

I know that you’re thinking that I’m being melodramatic, but it’s true.  Hubby scrounged around and found something else to eat.  I had to leave the den and shower soon afterward because the smell was so stomach-turning that I couldn’t even be in the same room with it. 

In fact, I didn’t even throw it out and clean the pot last night because I didn’t want to churn the stench out into the air, for fear that I would throw up the little bit that I had.  The only thing that I could imagine worse than eating 3 bites of it was throwing up 3 bites of it.  I’m secretly hoping that my cancer was so offended by the Devil’s spaghetti sauce that it up and died while I slept last night.

I’m trying to get over it, I really am, but nothing like this has ever, ever happened.  Ever.  I have never made something inedible.  In fact, I’m so freaked out that I haven’t been back in the kitchen today to try and fix anything.  I haven’t even had cereal or a granola bar for breakfast.  I just had some orange juice as I was running out the door to the grocery store.

And that was surreal- going to the grocery store while trying not to think how badly I might screw up the food that I was purchasing.  Usually I try to plan out meals in my head based on whatever’s on sale.  Today I wandered around, bewildered, trying to follow my list while pushing the spaghetti fiasco to the back of my mind.  Just the thought of it was so unappetizing that it was hard to remember that we needed more food.

I kind of mentally planned out our meals this morning, but also made sure Hubby has an adequate supply of snack foods just in case my one episode of bad cooking turns into a streak.  If worse comes to worst, we always have that 5 pound bag of gummi bears from Sam’s that I got last week.  I’ve convinced myself that they are healthy for me because they’re made with “real fruit juice”.

I’m having a sandwich for lunch, just to be on the safe side.