Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Too Irate to Celebrate.

I wasn’t expecting Easter to be a happy occasion this year but I thought that we would at least get to eat a nice meal. How wrong can you be?

I suggested to my husband that it might be a good idea if he helped his 89 year old father to barbecue the meat but he was not impressed with the idea. He did however manage to check on his father’s progress from time to time and tell him what he was doing wrong before wandering off for another cigarette and a sip of iced coffee.

I busied myself in the kitchen seasoning meat and preparing salads and muttering under my breath about turnip headed trouts. In retrospect I should have paid more attention to what I was doing.

It took granddad over two hours to get the barbecue cleaned and lit so time was getting on and tummies were rumbling by the time the lamb chops, pork chops and sausages were cooked I had a plate of golden chips ready and the salads just needed dressing.

The best part of any BBQ for me is that first bit of meat snaffled off the grill but this was not the case on Sunday. As I happily chomped on succulent looking lamb chop my anticipation of gastronomic bliss plummeted from a precipice of panic as I realized that the chop was as salty as the dead sea. Drastic action was needed so I grabbed a bowl filled it with warm water and as I washed the chops granddad tossed them back on the grill for a quick sizzle. We carried the doctored dinner into the kitchen and were met by thick smoke bellowing from the fryer. In all the excitement I had forgotten about the last lot of chips (though they now resembled charcoal bricks) and we arrived on the scene just in time to prevent a fire.

We sat down to a meal of slightly less salty meat and cold chips then I remembered the salad dressing. I quickly threw salt oil and lemon into the mix and poured it on the salad before realizing that I hadn’t added pepper. Grabbing the pepper pot I turned it upside down over the salad and the lid fell off emptying the entire contents into the bowl. Once I had removed the salad with most of the pepper and tossed the rest we sat down in the smoky kitchen to a meal that was more eye watering than mouth watering and I couldn’t help wondering if my mum in law was having a ghostly chuckle about the mess we were making now that she isn’t here to shout and chivvy

19 comments:

Elaine Denning said...

Oh God. Some meals are just not meant to happen, are they? At least you may look back it it with a chuckle in a few years. x

cathy said...

I'm already laughing :)

Akelamalu said...

Oh crikey - what else could go wrong??? :0

lime said...

oh dear. it does sound like a comedy of errors.

Travis Cody said...

Yikes!

Logophile said...

That is some classic stuff right there. You'd never find that in a "realistic" film because, honestly, who would believe ALL that would go wrong at once?
Only real life events can get away with being that improbably disasterous.
Thank goodness you are laughing!

val said...

Oh well, at least the house didn't burn down.

cathy said...

Yup, worse things happen at sea...

come to think of it that's where I met my husband :)

ann said...

quietly smiling and laughing to myself - been there, done it, especially the pepper pot lid and the forgotten food on the stove

last week trumped all - it was passover and at 8.15 i tasted the soup, my guests were gonna be seated at 8.30 and dinner would be around 9.30 - the soup tasted sour to me, so my dil came in the kitchen and tasted it, then my daughter, then my mother - in 35 years of cooking i never knew chicken soup could turn sour - in the end daughter, sil and moi were a conveyor belt frantically plating up a dozen smoked salmon hors d'oeuvres

the next day i googled sour chicken soup and was shocked that it was not an unknown phenomenon - duh!!!!!

puerileuwaite said...

You can baste this turkey anytime.

cathy said...

Ann - now I have to google sour chicken soup, chuh!

Pug - It's not Christmas yet.

Michael said...

Salty huh? One word...scones...just saying :)

cathy said...

LOL, I'd forgotten about the scones.
Shutup! I was only a kid!

AZZITIZZ said...

Mmmmmm, sounds yummy to me, then again anything does when you are on a diet!!!!

At least you are able to barbeque, my back door jammed late last summer with all my barbeque stuff still out there and open to the elements all winter (I sit sulking looking at it from my back window now and again), my front door stuck too, had to get Lil'Sis to slam against it every morning so I could get out! Landlord finally got it fixed after a multitude of calls from me but he didn't bother doing the back door. Couldn't get in the back gate as it was all locked up and I had NO intention of climbing over a six foot wall with my dickie knee!

Anyway, how ya doin' other than trying to burn your house down? Long time no blog, been busy, busy, busy.

Will try to pop over a bit more often to say hello from now on.

Azzy
X

BBC said...

Well hon, at least you have a memory for and in case you get old. :-)

Cooking is second nature to me so maybe you should have invited me to be the chef?

Well, maybe not, you might be too distracting and I would have burned the fucking chops. :-)

Mona said...

Cathy, I am so sorry about your Mother in law. May she rest in peace!

That was one of the most hilarious post I read in a long while! But I am sorry about the spoiled meal!

Vij said...

I seriously believe that I would have done worse. Honest! It also brings back memories of cold squid on 'Clean Monday' over a decade ago!!! I don't use salt and pepper in any food, so I wouldn't have eaten anything anyway. I would also blame those who didn't help out when they could have... Justice must be done...

Jocelyn said...

Um: He is Risen?

Kurush F Dalal said...

stumbled upon your blog and couldn't help chuckling my way through this post of yours ... somedays just nothing will go right :)

thank u for makin me and the missus (promptly shared it with her) laugh.