It was then, finally, that I gave up.
Weekend Meditation: Cooking with Lucy Ricardo
It was one of those days in the kitchen today. An awkward tumble of Lucy Ricardo moments, one slapstick event following the other. Things kept burning, or dropping, or breaking. I picked up the ripe tomato I was counting on and --yuck--found it to be overripe. I blew a fuse by using the toaster oven and the electric kettle at the same time and ran out of sugar before I was done. I cut my thumb and watched, speechless, as I bled a bright red poppy into a bowl of perfectly made, creamy white gazpacho.
Sometimes things go so horribly wrong, it's clear that I have to give in. I just can't fight it anymore and I surrender into 'one of those days' kind of days. This is usually accompanied by a shrug, followed up by a glass of wine on the living room couch. Sometimes surrendering has its rewards.
Two things help me wriggle out of the clutches of a bad day. The first is that I've learned over the years that wanting things to be different only adds to the problem. This is not saying I'm not going to do something about my circumstances. This is not a passive stance. This is simply replacing the 'why me?' with a 'now what?'
The second thing is knowing/remembering that things change and this moment's series of unfortunate events will not last forever. Tomorrow, perhaps even this evening, my very terrible, horrible, no good, awful day will be in the past and I will be thoroughly engaged in what ever the next thing is. Often, this next thing isn't nearly as distressing. Often, it's rather pleasant.
The third thing that just occurred to me is that humor helps. So my nickname for those unfortunate series of mishaps is that I'm having a Lucy Ricardo moment/afternoon/day. This helps me to remember that my once perfect, now spoiled gazpacho is not something to hook my identity on. I am not my mistakes!
OK, there is a fourth thing: bursting into tears is always an option.
Comments (4)
Weekly Email
Top Posts
Top Recipes
- Valentine's Recipe: Killer Blondies
- How To Make Creamy Ice Cream with Just One Ingredient!
- Step-by-Step Instructions for One-Ingredient Ice Cream
- How To Make Scallion Pancakes
- Recipe: Best Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
Top Tours
- Kitchen Gallery: White, Bright, and Clean
- Gretchen & Rachel's DIY Kitchen
- Chris and Heather's Serene and Hippie Kitchen
- James' Tiny Yet Refreshing Kitchen
- Ashley's Bright and Efficient Kitchen
© 2010 Apartment Therapy
sometimes it happens.
Last night I had a couple friends over for dinner, and I'd planned on a lovely-sounding dessert of poached plums in a rosemary syrup with fresh blackberries stirred in at the last minute. I had picked beautiful plums from the farmer's market, snipped fresh rosemary directly from my pot on the sill, and left my roommate to talk to my friends as I busily halved the plums into the simmering syrup, just like the recipe called for; then leaving it to simmer, I went back to join the party a minute.
And came back a few minutes later to find that I'd also without thinking turned up the heat under the plums, and thus they were now boiled into absolute mush. I just blinked a few times, then took a deep breath, turned off the heat, and went back into the living room with a big smile and announced that the poached plums I'd been raving about all night had "suffered a structural integrity problem" -- but hey, who wants poached anything on such a hot night anyway, right? So let's all dig into fresh blackberries with whipped cream!
And that was just fine.
After my friends left I pureed the plum pulp and I'm making granita out of it now.
view empresscallipygos's profile
This was the other night for me.
I was trying to make a pasta salad with pesto, fresh mozz, and cherry tomatoes - something that should take me 10 minutes start to finish.
My food processor broke while I was making the pesto (the plastic bowl part cracked and oil was coming out), so I duck taped it back together (I was starving). I made pasta in my hot pot because I didn't want to turn on the stove, and while I was draining it (using the hotpot top and not a colander), all of the pasta fell into the sink. I scooped it out, rinsed it off, put everything together, ate it and had a much deserved beer and a good laugh.
view arielg's profile
I remember the first cake my sister made when I was a kid. It was burnt on the outside and completely raw on the inside. Till this day, I don't know how she did it.
view Comicgeek's profile
I'd broken the little piece of plastic that activates the coffee grinder. I'd filled the grinder with 4 scoops of beans already. I don't know why but I found the little piece of plastic and decided to insert it into the matching slot in the top of the grinder. Mind you, this is without the clear plastic top in place.
Beans everywhere. Behind the toaster, in the toaster, on the floor, in an open drawer, and the little plastic piece? who knows where it went. All I could do was laugh because what was I expecting to happen? Ground coffee? Not without the cover. Nothing? Then why do it at all?
So at 7:30 in the AM I get out the vac and clean most of the beans from the floor...and laugh at myself while I do it.
view JD523's profile