From the time I was able to lick out a bowl of chocolate cake batter, I loved being in the kitchen with my mom. At nine I decorated my first cake and couldn’t get enough of the kitchen.

The time came when my mom left me in charge of the kitchen for a whole weekend while she visited her sister. Although I assured her I could handle everything, she (like a good mom) left the fridge full of easy to prepare foods.

photo by Katia Grimmer-Laversanne

This was going to be a breeze!

The first night I pulled out a big pot of Chow Mein. All I needed to do was boil rice and heat up the sauce. How much easier could it get?

In twenty minutes the rice was just about tender, but there must be something wrong with the Chow Mein sauce. It was warm but looked like a thin watery soup. My little siblings wouldn’t eat that!

No worries. I’d just add thickener. I mixed up flour and water and slowly added it to the Chow Mein sauce.

Nothing happened except that it turned a bit whiter.

Hmmmm. I added more thickener. Nothing happened except that it turned whiter.

I called my dad into the kitchen but he couldn’t figure out what was wrong either. So I added more. Still nothing happened (except that it turned still more white.)

I added more thickener. By this time the kids were ready to gather at the table but the sauce was still thin and floury white.

Forget the thinness, I had to do something about the color. Quick! I glanced through the cupboards looking for black sauces to darken it.

My dad prayed and we served up big dishes of food. Only my dad made it past the first bite. It wasn’t Chow Mein anymore. Just floury water with a hint of soy sauce and Worcestershire. Ick!

We ate rice.

Come to find out, you have to boil sauces and gravies (not just add two cups of flour) in order for them to thicken! Oops.

Moral of the story? Make sure you boil your Thanksgiving gravy!

 

photo by Andrea Kratzenberg

It was one of those lovely spring days. The counter and table were covered in strawberries. For years I’d helped make jam and this time convinced my mom that I could finish this batch alone. I was thirteen.

All was going well. The jars were sterilized, jam made and the water bath canner was boiling away when the timer rang.

It was time to get the jars of jam out, but I couldn’t find the canning-jar-lifter. Anywhere.

I panicked.

Rather than running to find my mom, I found two forks and tried to lift a can out. It didn’t work. Desperate, I grabbed an oven mitt. Surely that would protect me from the boiling hot water, right?

Slipping my hand into the mitt, I stuck it into the boiling water and grabbed the first jar.

The burning reality hit just as I pulled it out of the pot right over my bare feet. Reason, who had abandoned me to this point, returned for a moment and kept me from dropping glass and boiling jam on my toes. Then, just as quickly, Reason fled.

Worried that 37 seconds too long in the water would ruin the jam, I stuck my poorly defended hand back into the pot for the second jar, then the third…

Just as I pulled out the last jar, my mom came back into the kitchen. Impressed isn’t quite the right word.

In less than a minute my hand was soaking in ice water and Mom had taken over the kitchen.

After about twelve hours of ice water (and as many slices of strawberry-jam-lathered-bread) my fingers finally stopped stinging.

Moral of the story: never make jam without the canning-jar-lifter standing close by.