Hell-O

As you all know, or those of you who've read me regularly for a long time, and you know who you are, and so do I....

Wait. I'll come in again.

As you all know, I have a birth defect. I mention it on occasion here in the old blog, when I'm called upon to do something that this birth defect prevents me from being able to do. Or do well. Of course, I am talking about the fact that I was born without the Betty Crocker Gene. The Betty Crocker Gene, first written about by Dave Barry, is the gene we women are born with that gives us that extra talent in the world of cooking, decorating, mothering, and walking around the house vacuuming in high heels a la June Cleaver in general.

I was not born with this gene. My mom has it. My sister has it. But not me. Nope, I came along, a walking birth defect, God in His infinite wisdom said, "Hmm, let's do this. (tinkering and thinking) Let's just lose the BCG on Bet here, and instead we'll put something in her DNA that makes her really like pens and pencils, and watching too much TV, and then we'll take that out of little Jimmy here and give him the BCG. Then we'll watch them throughout their lives and, Gabriel, you can take notes. And put down that damn trumpet. It's getting on my wick."

And so when pot luck parties roll around I'm called upon to bring napkins and paper plates, which kind of hurts my feelings, but it's much better than the way my feelings are after watching people politely pass by whatever dish I might make to set upon the big buffet table. Hey, I like my Hoppin' John Salad, and dream of the day some poor unsuspecting soul says to me, "Wow, this is great! I must have the recipe!"

The funniest phone call I've ever received in my life happened about 20 years ago, when my cousin Jacob called me up one day and asked me how to make a baked potato. We were both young and stupid back then, and she wasn't sure exactly what one did, potato-wise. I think her main question was, "If you put it in a conventional oven, do you still have to poke holes in it so it won't explode?" Of course, Jacob is now married and makes all kinds of food (I assume, we don't talk much now), and although I can proudly say that I've always known how to make a baked potato, I don't really think I've progressed in the whole cooking milieu like Jacob has.

However, I would like to make the announcement that over the Easter holiday I baked my first-ever turkey. Well, it was a turkey breast, but to me that's the same thing, only you don't have to worry about fishing out the little bag of giblets in the turkey's nether regions, which I tried to do anyway, I felt all over that poor bird's erogenous zones looking for giblets. When I realized he didn't really have a cavity per se to put them in, I put all fears aside and got going on him. So to speak. And he came out just fine, I ate him and Mr M ate him and neither of us came down with food poisoning or bird flu.

But then, Sunday came along.

I'd decided that my recipe du jour for this week's Picture Sunday would contain a little ingredient called Jell-O. I know I'm a woman of a mature age, able to drive and vote and buy liquor and everything, but I've never in my entire life made Jell-O. I've never had a need to. I don't like Jell-O. I find it rather difficult to understand why anyone would like Jell-O. I mean, what's to like? It's goofy Kool-Aid. It's not jelly, not ice cream, not a popsicle, it's just, well, you know. It's goofy! I didn't even like it much as a kid, even though Mom made it and so therefore we were obliged to eat it, but my question was always, "If you want something sweet, why Jell-O? Not when there's chocolate, and rice with cream and sugar in it." For those of you keeping score at home, I don't like pudding, either. The Jell-O people get none of my hard-earned cash, in 20-cent increments, for my snacking pleasures.

(An aside - probably the worst thing about my surgery two years ago, other than the pain, and the not being able to sleep from the pain, was the fact that for three days my entire diet consisted of Jell-O and ice chips. The only thing I had to look forward to in a day's time was guessing what color the Jell-O would be for any given meal. I was hoping green would never make an appearance, but it did.)

I wasn't that worried about the whole Jell-O experience, though. I mean, what an innocuous little food. How hard could it be to make? After all, Bill Cosby was on TV for years telling kids about the joys of getting in the kitchen, making up some star-shaped Jell-O, and having the time of their young lives. And so I went to The Store, bought me a nice box of lemon, and got cooking.

I read the directions carefully, something not usually very high on my list of priorities. The directions were simple. Add one cup of boiling water to your Jell-O powder. Then add one cup of cold water. Slide the whole concoction into the refrigerator, and let the fun begin. And that's exactly what I did, though I had a slight problem with the last part. Because the fun never did begin, and the angst started knocking at my door.

I was told to, if I was doing something fancy with my Jell-O, and boy, wasn't I, wait until the Jell-O got to the consistency of beaten eggs before I started adding my ingredients. And I got there. I got right to that part, my Jell-O was getting a little oozy, and I added my ingredients, and the smile on my face, when they kind of held there and didn't sink to the bottom, was a mile wide.

But that didn't last long. Because I kept checking my Jell-O and it kept staying that same consistency. Oozy beaten eggs. I waited. And waited. I stuck forks and fingers into the bowl, and nothing seemed to be gelling. Or Jell-Oing. I'd given myself a window of five hours. At the five hour mark I had little hope, but I checked it all again. It was still oozy. And I got woozy. Not only for the fact that I was becoming aware that my recipe du jour was in grave jeopardy, but also for the fact that I didn't seem to be able to make the food kids learn to cook with.

I gave it two more hours. The same thing. At that point, I'd decided I was going to wait it out. I made an announcement that the recipe du jour had been put on hold for a day, and then I began the most intense Mexican Standoff anyone ever had with a bowl of Jell-O.

I went to bed. I got up Monday morning and before I even checked my email and started my coffee, I checked my recipe. Nothing. I went to work and came home at lunch at checked again. Nothing.

The Jell-O had won.

Or had it? About an hour before it was time to go home from work, I had something of an epiphany. This is the recipe du jour! I don't eat the recipe du jour. I don't even set it out on a pot luck buffet table for people to politely pass by. All I needed this hoo-hah dish for was a photo. What did I care about anything else?

So when I got home from work I took my oozy tuna-carrot-basil-celery-packet of mayonnaise lemon Jell-O and stuck it in the freezer. I then went about my after-work duties, laundry, kitchen-cleaning, exercising, staring into space, and after about 2 hours I checked the freezer. I had something hard, which was about as exciting as it gets here at the Poderosa.

So I upended it, plopped it on a plate, gingerly, dressed it up, and took its picture. And I probably would have had you all fooled, could have said, "Look at meeeee! I can make Jell-O, you bastards!" But then I decided the packet of mayonnaise needed his place in the spotlight, so I started taking a spoon to the salad. What I came up with, as evidenced by the last photo in Picture Sunday, was a gigantic plate of glop. And sure, I could have blamed that on the hot lights of the photo session, but I'm nothing if not honest, and so I thought I'd tell you the whole sorry tale.

I asked my friend and workmate San, also known as my Mother Figure, what on earth I could have done wrong to, quote, "fuck up Jell-O." She told me I put too much water in it. I refused to believe this and kept stating my case, which was that I put in exactly the amount of hot water and cold water that I was asked to add. San's reply? "You put too much water in." No-nonsense, that San.

Well, I let it slide, knowing in my heart I put exactly the right amount of water in that bowl. And I do know that I did. One cup hot, one cup cold. Whatever transpired once the water was in that powder I have no control over. However, once the pictures were made and that most distressful of times arrived, the Recipe du Jour Cleanup, I did notice that my Jell-O Tuna Salad Extravaganza seemed to be, well, for lack of a better word, leaking. Not melting, for the liquid emanating from it wasn't yellow. Leaking.

So, who knows? Not I, that's for damn sure. All I know is that I don't like Jell-O, Jell-O is not my friend, and I'll be happy if I never have to make it again. Only I'm kind of mulling around a new recipe idea that involves Jell-O. And this is what is known in the vernacular as "a glutton for punishment."

Maybe I'll try suspending my next dish in pudding.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners. Thanks for playing. So, tell me about your cooking disasters.
- Honorable Mention goes to Kellie, with her "Eggplant Really Nasty? You Will Call Lawyer." Sue, sue, sue.
- Runner-up goes to ESP, with her, "Every recipe never yields what children like." Picky, picky, picky.
- And this week's winner goes to Flipsycab, with her "Elaine reinvented nasty: Yak-Walnut-Cauliflower-Latte." Nasty, nasty, nasty.
- Thanks to all who played, you've all done very well!