n my mind I have to do most things perfectly, but I am hardest on
myself when it comes to cooking. I love to cook. I’ve said before that
cooking is like a meditation for me at times. I enjoy taking a whole
Friday afternoon or Sunday and cooking for the week so that we have
good, healthy food readily available. I also love to have people over
for dinner. I did this regularly when my husband was in law school and
we would cram 20 people into our 3 bedroom apartment using any surface
available for seating. Whenever I have people over I love to pull out
all the stops and just create food magic. Even when things come out
very well I am always criticizing my own food. It could be a little
more done. It could be less done. I should have braised instead of
roasted, or roasted instead of braised, used a higher temperature or a
lower temperature.
Now even though I’m a food perfectionist, I’m always fearless when it
comes to cooking. Having dinner guests and making something I’ve never
made before? HA! No worries here. I shall take that challenge.
Knowing what you now know about me and my crazy foodie habits consider
the following recipe: 1 perfectionist food nerd, 3 new never-been tried
before dishes, in-laws over for dinner for the first time after we got
married. Combine! Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.
I was going to make a Bechemel Vegetable Lasagne using ‘no boil’
lasagne noodles. Basque stewed tomatoes. Spinach salad with warm bacon
dressing. That Bechemel lasagne was a monster. Tons of prep for
slicing the veggies uber thin, making the bechemel, only to have the
noodles burn on the ends and not soften. At all. It was like dry wall
between the veggie layers. The tomatoes? Watery tomato gruel. The
salad? In my attemps to figure out what in the name of all things
Escoffier ( you know, Auguste Escoffier, father of French cooking?) was
going on with the lasagne, I let my bacon get too hot. In fact I
burned it. Ever eaten burned bacon or better yet thought about using
the fat rendered from it as a vinaigrette base? Mmm, mmm, retch! While
all this is going on my husband is wondering why I am swearing up a
storm. He is blissfully unaware that the whole meal is about to hit the
fan. Then the worst thing that could happen happens. Mark’s parents
show up. A half an hour early as I’ve learned they are known to do.
At this point I am very upset and on the verge of losing it. When I
proceed to drop the whole bowl of salad on the floor the crack is
audible as I hit my breaking point. I leave the salad on the floor, the
tomatoes on the stove, and the lasagne mocks me from the counter as I
walk into the back bedroom, proceed to lie face down on the floor like a
4 year old and bury my face in my hands and cry. My husband comes to
find me. I will not get up from the floor. I will not come out of the
bedroom. I am mortified. Mark’s parents are completely unaware of the
situation. Between hitching sobs I tell Mark everything is ruined. I
am embarrassed to face my in-laws who at this point I’m sure are
thinking I am off my rocker and going to stick my head in the oven. We
can’t order pizza as my mother in law has some severe food allergies. I
have nothing for back up. I am completely and utterly defeated by this
meal.
Eventually I slink out of the bedroom. My mother in law is cleaning
up salad and my husband gets my coat and tells me we’re going out to
eat. Mercifully he’s thrown the whole meal in the trash. Mark is trying
not to laugh at me – not the cooking catastrophe, but my reaction. And
in retrospect it’s pretty hilarious. Imagine me lying facedown in a
dress and wearing an apron and crying into my hands? Over dinner?
Perfectionism has it’s price in the ego department, especailly when
things don’t go as planned. I’ve since tried to let go of those
tendencies. And I’ve never made bechemel vegetable lasagne again.
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