BS: The Recipe From Hell

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: kendall
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 09:00 PM

Dani my dear friend, there is an old saying, "Show me someone who has never made a mistake and I'll show you someone who has never done anything."
I've never learned anything doing something right.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 05:19 PM

You're sweet Kendall, but my judges also include my sisters, who have tales of my 'practice' cooking many years ago : ) and I'm still living down the coconut custard pie that wasn't quite the same without the sugar, among other kitchen disasters.

Gnu, sounds like a kitchen intervention is in order.

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Charmion
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 11:03 AM

Oh, gnu -- been there, heard that, cringed with everyone else at the table.

When I left home (age 18) and became mistress of my own kitchen -- one square foot of counter space, one tiny cupboard and a primitive gas cooker -- it was like being let out of jail.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: kendall
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 10:59 AM

I've eaten at Dani's place, and believe me, it was all delicious.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: gnu
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 10:53 AM

Dani... "Anyone can follow a recipe, and take criticism delivered gently?"

Yes, but she "tweaks" em all to make em better. Hey, if a tsp of spice is good, a handful is better.

Criticism? Hahahaaaaaa! I have seen small children refuse to eat... it did not go over well.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 08:42 AM

Becca, you are your father's daughter : )

I think that it takes both ignorance AND contempt to cook badly on a regular basis. Anyone can follow a recipe, and take criticism delivered gently? If delivered along with a very beautiful, simple and basic cookbook.

I'm thinking maybe this person can't taste at all, Gnu. Maybe it truly doesn't taste the way you experience the horror?

My mother wasn't much interested in food, and so didn't have the same enjoyment her daughters had. Food was bland, predictable, but not horrible. She cooked a small handful of things very well, and I don't recall much deviation. I think that's a good formula if you're not all that engaged in the food or the cooking.

I, on the other hand, LOVE food. As a chef, my current gig involves cooking for, and teaching, women with eating disorders. Some are talented, skilled cooks who just don't want to eat the food; others (and these are the fun ones) have never made a peanut butter sandwich for themselves. With some very basic skills in place, and good basic recipes, even the worst are trainable, believe me.

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 01:46 AM

1. Vegetable chow mein, carrots, potato & leek soup, cheese & bics, Glass of milk

2. Spinach quiche, peas & carrots, fresh fruit, Apple juice

3. Roast Lamb & gravy, broccoli, wholemeal bread & butter, fresh fruit, Glass of milk.

YUM? these were meals I had in hospital & as I was writing on the back of the accompanying menu/ID sheet, I still have proof of what was offered to post-operative surgical patients lasat week. When I could walk I wandered out to the cafe & bought a chicken sandwich on grainy bread - it was the best thing I could find, then I was released & could eat real food again.

Vegetable chow mein (= 1 tablespoon noodles, 1 soup spoon vegs), carrots (1 tblsp), potato & leek soup (maybe 2 tablsps), cheese & bics (2 crackers & small square of cheese in a plastic 1-serve packet), Glass of milk (small)

Spinach quiche (about 2" square), peas & carrots (1 tblsp each), fresh fruit, Apple juice (small)

Roast Lamb & gravy (1 slice about palm size), broccoli (2 TINY branches), wholemeal bread & butter, fresh fruit, Glass of milk.

The only protein option at brekkie was peanut butter - cereals & bread + fruit & milk & juices were all we were offered.

No wonder I needed lots of vegetables & grainy bread when I was released. I can still remember a meal in the early 80's when my friend cooked for 3 adults & 2 kids half a steamer of vegs - I normally over-filled the steamer for my meal, & still do.

sandra (vegetable addict)

google ad for Dog Food Secret Recipes! ooh, I just loooove those google ads.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 07:00 PM

To be a truly bad cook - you must despise the people you are cooking for AND the meal you are cooking.

The Spanish are great at their own cuisine, but they have nothing but naked resentment for anyone who comes to Spain and wants to eat non Spanish.

My mother in law was a case in point. She was totally mistrustful of anything in the slightest bit foreign. And despite many dire experiences she kept ordering omelettes and egg and bacon.

One egg and bacon day in Benidorm,   I looked at her across the table end enquired the reason for her evident distress.

'They've put garlic in the fried egg,' she said mournfully. I did what any son in law would do in the circumstances - and laughed my ass off and ordered another large brandy.

One time in Grand Canaria I was seduced by the promise of a chicken curry for 325 pesetas in a bar. My wife said, 'Don't be stupid - you're wasting money. You know they they don't know what chicken curry is.'

Well what can one say? I should have realised Denise was right by the incredulous look on the face of the barman - incredulous that anyone would be so stupid as to wish to eat a meal with its origins in the dark regions of the earth.

The meal arrived. A teaspoon full of Colemans curry sauce on a chicken leg. I turned the chicken leg over - there was still ice on the other side.

I looked up the barman, and three of his mates stood there ready to beat me up if I asked for my money back. I ordered a large brandy. The three men looked the other way and started talking, and you could feel the atmosphere in the bar calm down. If I had suggested he didn't know how to cook a chicken curry - it would have been a real blow to his macho thing, and I would have been floating in the Atlantic alongside Robert Maxwell.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: GUEST,John Gray in Oz
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 02:51 PM

My first wife was such a bad cook she had the only kitchen in the world where the flies came home to die.

JG/FME

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Helen
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 02:35 PM

Elizabeth David's cook books - simple, fresh food. Brilliant!

In Oz there is a common custom of "bring and share" dinners to take the load of responsibility off the host/ess. Everyone contributes a dish and usually there is a wide variety of food to suit all tastes. The trick would be to convince your relative that this is a brilliant idea - a diplomatic mission worth accomplishing. Then, at least, everyone would get something they like to eat and they would only have to take a small sample of what they didn't like.

My Mum cooked meat & 3 veg meals which were all good. Not exciting, not gourmet, but good, healthy fare. She didn't make a lot of sweet things, even before she was diagnosed with diabetes, but anything she cooked was good. Lucky us! She even worked out healthy vegetarian alternatives for my Dad when he decided to stop eating meat.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: paula t
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 02:28 PM

At teacher training college in the early 80s I ate many "Meals from hell" in the canteen. Our meals were already paid for so we were prisoners! A typical example one evening was as follows:

Soya meat chicken cubes in a white sauce.
Leeks in -probably the same- tasteless white sauce.
Mashed potatoes(large, icy lumps, held together by "glue")
A spoonful of tinned tomatoes.

Tinned "fruit salad" (mainly mushy pears and rubbery peaches)
"Blancmange"


Mmm, yummy. The indigestion and nausea come flooding back!

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: gnu
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 01:43 PM

Acadian Fricot is a stew with chicken, spuds, onions, summer savory, dumplings and whatever.

We were on a big fall woods trip. My buddy's wife sent along a large pot of Fricot. First supper, after a long day in the bush, we dug in.

She had boiled a whole chicken... the WHOLE chicken... you know how many bones there are in a chicken? tiny little bones?

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 12:10 PM

This reminds me. Mom would get recipes from the Agricultural Extension agent every so often. Two memorable dishes were liver and kidney teriyaki (meat was diced, it was horrible). We renamed it liver and kidney harakiri and she never made it again. The other was a dessert, concord grape flavored tapioca pudding. The recipe created enough to feed a small army. It probably made the disposal bilious to run it down the drain. As a funny aside, a junior high school English teacher offered up a mnemonic device for remembering the difference between spelling "dessert" and "desert."

"Dessert has two esses, and you can remember there are more esses because you want more dessert." But not with this pudding!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: kendall
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 11:45 AM

How the hell can toast have bones?

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: gnu
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 04:12 PM

Kendall... "... couldn't boil shit for a tramp." My old man used to say, "Couldn't parboil shit for a tramp."

Becca... I love that one!

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 03:37 PM

Google "Bacon Explosion". But not if you're a vegetarian.

(Scary!!)

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Becca72
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 03:05 PM

The flies took up a collection to have the screen door fixed....

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 02:39 PM

My first wife, Becca's mother, couldn't boil shit for a tramp.
The garbage desposal had ulcers.

When I first went aboard the Explorer, the Captain thought he could cook. Right, sweet potatoes and canned Mackeral. Yum!
When I became Captain many changes were made, including the chow.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: M.Ted
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 10:21 PM

Most bad meals are some combination of bad ingredients and careless cooking.

Without having been there to witness, my guess is that the sauce was watery, with a slightly acid taste, made from store brand tomatoes and/or tomato sauce, tossed into a pan and heated up, rather than actually cooked. Any spices added had probably been sitting in the cupboard for years past the time they'd lost their flavor. The veggies probably were frozen, and freezer burned--from a horrid bag of mixed vegetables with cubed carrots, cut up beans, wrinkled peas, and random kernels of corn.

The easiest secret to good cooking is to use fresh ingredients and to prepare them simply. Beyond that, it is important to know what you need to do to get whatever you are cooking to taste good. It also helps to be able to follow directions. All this is cold comfort, however, because the truly bad cook is impervious to suggestion.

Without getting into personal details, we have had many meals like this to contend with--my sister, who lives close to home, simple eats before going over. I live far away, stay in a nearby hotel when visiting, and simply invite them for dinner at the hotel--on one ocassion, a major holidays, I cooked a meal for 15 in our hotel room and took it over, much to the appreciation of the guests.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 10:42 PM

My mother in law is /was a a terrible cook.When I first met up with my husband and he took me to eat at is parents it was one of the worst meals I can ever remember. Some kind of casserole with bits (of what?) in it and packaged rolls and frozen veggies loosely cooked. She served ice tea and no wine and low fat ice milk with cookies for dessert. It turned out to be typical of every meal she ever served and I hated them all

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: frogprince
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 06:49 PM

My mother was a decent cook for the most part; we generally lived on basic farm fare: beef, pork, or chicken with mashed potatoes and a side of whatever vegetables. She was good with cakes and other baked goods. But I always hoped that if she fixed breakfast eggs she would scramble them; otherwise she would crack them in the frying pan and fry them to the consistency of tire patches.

So far as a recipe from hell back then, she brought home a great idea from a womans meeting once; along with fruit in jello, lay in a layer of graham crackers to dissolve into a gummy sludge. Fortunately she only served it once, so we forgave her.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 06:16 PM

Thanks for typing up your recipe, olddude. I'm going to try it.

You may have found a recipe that makes loin pork chops taste good.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 03:49 PM

I used that plastic baggie ploy while I was growing up. It works.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: gnu
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 03:16 PM

Oh... ahyup. Many times. You can taste it. Fridge and freezer.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Becca72
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 03:11 PM

Leave out the mincemeat and those muffins sound pretty good.
Maybe she just likes to use up stuff that's been sitting in the 'fridge awhile and throws it all in together...

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: gnu
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 02:53 PM

Right... I did get taken to task by some 'Catters over this thread. I mean, yeah, okay, I can undertsand that I may not understand some recipes can be okay even if they have stuff that I have never thought could go in the same pot. And, Sorcha, I agree that finely shredded carrots sweeten... I don't care for half cooked chunks of them!

But, I DO have a problem with this one. Pumpkin mincemeat muffins with cream cheese icing. Come on!

Oh... hope you didn't want to try them as today is garbage day. And, since the crows weren't keen, well... Now, the seagulls might have eaten them, but I figured they would have crapped all over my truck.

BTW... for that special 'Catter who was REALLY upset by this thread, don't bother to comment further... your shock and awe just don't mean squat to me.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Charmion
Date: 15 Dec 08 - 10:25 AM

Gnu, your cookin' female relative is obviously a member of my mother's extended kin-group, 'cause my mother could spoil food for Canada. If a recipe had a delicious but somewhat expensive ingredient, she would substitute a less-expensive and, you guessed it, much less delicious ingredient that sort of looked like the original and that was enough for her. Cream sauce? Too much trouble, and it involves butter and cream -- couldn't have that. Canned cream of mushroom soup -- Top Valu, ten cents cheaper than Campbell's -- would do fine. (Not.)

I started cooking at the age of 12, in pure self-defence. Armed with determination and a copy of Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cook Book, I started with pancakes and omelette, and could turn out a darned good meat-and-two-veg with pud for dessert for the whole family plus guests/boarders (five to eight people) by the time I was through Grade 10. My Dad, whose mother was a seriously good cook, taught me how to make soup stock, gravy and stew, and what to put into canned beans to make them taste like beans you had made yourself (Dijon mustard and a dash of Worcestershire sauce). The rest I learned from books.

Mum charged me for the ingredients of dishes that failed. With eggs at 10 cents apiece, butter a dollar a pound, and an income derived from babysitting, I learned to damn' well pay attention to what I was doing.

After more than 40 years at the stove, my cooking style has simplified a great deal. In my 20s I was ambitious, making complex dishes like duck à l'orange (it takes hours) and eagerly spicing and herbing up whatever I got my claws on. Not so much these days -- one of the best recipes I know (Norwegian lamb and cabbage stew) has five ingredients, including salt and pepper, and makes an excellent company dish. A roast of beef takes just thyme, garlic, salt and pepper and careful attention to time and oven temperature, and everyone at dinner feels like they're getting a real treat, because they are.

As for recipes, the first time I use one I make it exactly as written, then note what I like about it and what doesn't work. If necessary, I change it, noting the variations on the original recipe. (All my cookbooks and recipe cards are written on.) My favourite fruitcake recipe works far better if I double the quantity (to make three loaves instead of one square pan) and bake it for half the recommended time. Jam and marmalade recipes that don't call for pectin often underestimate the time required to boil for set.

All in all, I consider cooking a craft that takes years to learn and constant practice to maintain skills. People like my mother are bad cooks because they disdain work -- especially if it's traditionally women's work -- that takes a lot of time and trouble, and produces only transitory results.

Cooking is like music: the fresh loaf or the song lasts as long as it lasts, but the sweet memory lingers for ever.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: LilyFestre
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 05:21 PM

We put carrots in our spaghetti sauce too and frequently we add summer squash or zucchini too...or maybe some eggplant or peppers. YUM. But corn? Not here. And definitely not green beans (too strong of a flavor) but they make a good side veggie when you have spaghetti (I add veggies to everything so as to not eat too much of the higher calorie stuff...fills me up and gives me great nutrition...can't beat it!).

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: olddude
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 05:04 PM

Oh while it is cooking I usually take a small knife and break up the whole tomatoes, that way the chucks go all through the sauce

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: olddude
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 04:50 PM

Oh you can also use some stew beef .. I use a couple of packs of them when I am in a hurry and don't want to cut up the roast. Also you can use as much meat as you feel is enough for your family. Don't overdo it but the secret is the beef and pork combo ..

try it .. I guarentee the results. I sell out every single time

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: olddude
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 04:45 PM

cube up some high quality lean beef (I use a rump roast)
cube up some high quality pork (I use some really nice pork chops)

add olive oil to a deep pan and fry it with 4 cloves of cut up garlic
brown it to a golden brown, make it completely cooked - golden brown

Add 2 cans of whole tomatoes
Add 1 can of crushed tomatoes
Add 1 can of tomatoe paste

Add 1 can of water

Put the lid on it and cook it 3 hours, no kidding, it will be sweet and incredible because the sauce has all the meat in it

DO not add sugar, Do not add anything else, No need and you will only ruin it


Cook your spagetti, shake some parmazan cheese on it, put the sauce on it and you won't believe how good it is.


The little old Italian lady said spices are a no no. They were only used years ago when meat was bad ... to cover up spoiled meat. Today we think true sauce should have herbs and spices ... Wrong

this is the ONLY way to do it and I tell you it is sweet and incredible
garlic nothing more. Also it will not be strong, frying it with the meat flavors the sauce but does not make the sauce taste all garlic ... it is the best

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: gnu
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 04:08 PM

Well then, let's save you all the trouble of PM's... post the sucker so I can copy, paste, print and give it to "her" so she can make it tweak it and make it better.

Okay.... peas... and carrots... but, Sorcha... yeah, I use veggies of all types like that too. But, corn and green beans? Don't tell me.... please....

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: olddude
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 03:51 PM

I have the best spagetti sauce recipe on the planet. No kidding it is my super secret very easy to make from scratch recipe that an elderly Italian lady taught me ... Right from the source. If anyone PM's me I will give it to you ... I tell you, it cannot be beat. When I make it for the church spagetti charity dinners we sell out and people asks me and I tell them it is a secret, but for the "Cat" I will share. I have been told it is the best spagetti they have ever had ... and many are Italians that know "proper" sauce"

Yup

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Amos
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 03:46 PM

"Waitress! Is this tea or coffee??? It tastes like kerosene!!!!"

"Then it must be coffee...our tea tastes like gasoline."

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 03:43 PM

For those who remember, I will only say: C-rats' ham 'n' eggs.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Sorcha
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 03:29 PM

And I know LOTS of people who put carrots in spagetti sauce...me for one. I shred them tho, and they pretty much disappear. Helps to 'sweeten' the sauce.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: olddude
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 03:15 PM

My Mom has got you beat ... the little old lady could make a meal that the survior man couldn't eat. Here was her last creation when I went down to visit:

Boiled up a huge pot of noodles, she then boiled some broccoli in a pan and added it to the strained noodles.   Then she fried a huge pan of bacon, and poured the bacon, and the bacon grease into the bowl... so it was noodles, broccoli and bacon grease all together ...

Yum ... She is highly insulted if you don't eat. My buddie Garry was with me because we drove down to fix her sink. I learned a long time ago to take it really slow, pretend to enjoy it, spread it around the plate and she thinks you ate (smart huh). Garry on the other hand woofed it down like medicine thinking lets get it over with. Right away I knew it was a mistake. My mom said ... Oh dear have some more you are hungry. He politely said ... no ... I told my mom, he said he was starving he is just shy ... so wam he got another plate of the stuff that he had to eat.

On the way home he turned to me and said ... Dan, I am going to kill you !!

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: gnu
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 02:34 PM

But, the returned spaghet was yer prime a faceayer evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 02:23 PM

Sounds like the Vietnam syndrome to me. "We can't pull out now, not after having invested all these lives and all this money." People often defend the indefensible, because to do otherwise would be to admit that they had made an error. That would entail loss of face.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: gnu
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 02:15 PM

To be a really good cook can actually be as simple as following a good recipe.

That is my point. If my grandmother gives you her secret, handed down though the family for generations, recipe for, say, the best green tomato chow I have ever tasted, why would you change it? And, worse, when people gag, why would you then laud it and say how much better it was after you totally messed it up?

Seven of ten plates of the spaghetti last night were returned to the kitchen with over half of the slop still on the plates.

I say oregaNO MORE!

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 01:57 PM

Kee-RYST! What horrific tales. I'm glad to say that I have been managing to totally avoid such forced familial get-togethers for many years now, and so have not had this sort of thing inflicted on me in a long time. I eat out a lot, and I have managed to find a handful of restaurants around here that are both good...and inexpensive.

Thinking back now, though....the worst things I have ever been served and which still stick in my memory were 2 cases of REALLY bad coffee. I remember 2 instances of this that went far beyond the "normally bad" to reach the "downright astounding". One was from a coffee truck that came around to some place I was working at, trying to poison people to death on their break. That guy's coffee was badly overdone, but that's not all...it had a weird extra taste in it that tasted like...burnt peanuts. I kid you not. Godawful.

The other was from a greasy spoon called Black Cat Fish & Chips. Their coffee was somehow both overdone and criminally weak at the same time, with a distinct added flavor of dish detergent. I never had their fish & chips, and if it was as bad as the coffee then I figure it's a good thing I didn't!

To be a really good cook is one of the most valuable things one can possibly be, in my opinion. For a real treat, watch the Disney film "Ratatouille" about a humble rat who becomes the greatest chef in all France. It's a mouthwateringly wonderful movie.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 01:56 PM

The first time I was in grad school I lived in an apartment with a couple other guys: we cooked our own meals and they were away every weekend.

One weekend I decided to fix an Olde Familye Favoritee: creamed tuna over mashed potatoes.

No problem with the mashed potatoes. I called the lady I later married to ask how to fix a cream sauce (milk, butter, and flour). I never thought to ask about the canned tuna and learned after afterwards that you really, really should drain off the oil it's packed in BEFORE adding it to anything.

Well, it WAS edible. And it gave rise to my Law Of Cooking: Nontoxic in, nontoxic out (that is, you can eat it but you might want to think twice about doing so).

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: gnu
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 01:23 PM

"Yer wife..." Ahhh, that is one less Bday to celebrate these days. There was another treasure in the kitchen. Rocket fuel really was her specialty.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 12:36 PM

One word, Gnu-zer: Beano!!!

Here's another idea... Get a baggie and hide it in yer pocket... When you get to yer in-laws fake like you have a cold and have a heavy duty hankie on hand... The hankie is gonna have to be heavy duty 'cause it's gonna be the delivery vehicle from the afke cough to the baggie on yer lap... No one is gonna notice nuthin' with that many people at the table fightin' over the soppy garlic bread... I guarentee it... Okay, yer gonna have to figure out how to get the baggie outta the house but yer smart... Maybe a coat or sweater on the back of yer chair...

Then, of course, stop on the way home from the family and get you a pizza... Yer wife won't care, really... She knows that the food is lousy...

Good luck...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: LilyFestre
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 12:34 PM

Oh man, I feel your pain. My MIL loves to cook and she used to be quite good but these days, it's all fried crap. She even warms up pizza by frying it. No kidding. Everything is better with bacon, dontcha know? DH and I eat a primarily whole foods diet and that fried stuff just kills our digestive tracts. Take Pepto before you go, have some ready for just after and have the really soft, cushy TP for your sore rear when you get home. I'd suggest taking something along, to add to the meal, to lessen her work, to show your appreciation for what she does...whatever....something that is kind to your body that you can tolerate.

It's amazing how some folks can tolerate that all the time and others can't at all. Be kind to your digestive system, that's what I say!

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: jacqui.c
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 12:32 PM

gnu - have you thought about telling them that you have developed food intolerances to almost everything so will bring your own specially prepared meal for family gatherings.

If you let them know that very unfortunate things occur (ranging from, say, impressive gas explosions to homicidal mania) if you eat the wrong stuff, maybe you can get away with avoiding the prepared treats.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: gnu
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 12:26 PM

Don't make fun of the incompetent... don't moan... don't go there...

Easy for youse to say. I gotta go. At least 8 times a year. It's family. The only time I don't have to go is on my Bday. I tell everyone it's because I don't like to be the centre of attention or receive crappy cards and cheap presents... well, not exactly in those words.

Nine people. Typical veggies might be spuds, carrots, turnip, Brussel sprouts, green beans... and over a pound of cheap margerine mixed or soaked in. Ya don't have ta be a physicsist (typo intended) ta figure out what happens after supper... all night long. And, yes, I have tried eating very little. It'll still goose ya.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 12:25 PM

Newport Boy, that restaurant review of Kettner's was a hoot! I'm still shivering!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 12:10 PM

A friend & I stopped in a little town in Kansas for lunch one day...there were two small restaurants. We flipped a coin....we lost. He ordered fried chicken, I ordered a hot beef sandwich. We both took a bite and looked at each other. His chicken looked 3 days old and dried out...and not well plucked. My 'beef' was tough and full of gristle....and when I tried the mashed potatoes, there was this strange, but oddly familar flavor...I tasted it several times, trying to pin it down...until suddenly it hit me! Watermelon! It was like the gravy and/or potatoes had sat in the refrigerator under a drippy piece of watermelon. I tried to wash it down with iced tea....almost transparent tea with that 'tang' you get at 2½ days old. We left. Got a hamburger 30 minutes later.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 11:58 AM

Thank you, Lord, for P-Vine, thank you...

But geeze, gnu-zer, it could have been worse... I mean, like were there any dill pickles in the 'sgetty sauce??? Or oranges??? My didter in law will put oranges or tangerines in just about any dish...

Needless to say, we seem to keep a list of "Geeze, we're sorry but __________" excuses handy for when she invites us up for a meal...

("Meal", Bobert???)

Or whatever one would call it...

BTW, my mother was a ***burner***... You'd know that dinner was ready by the smoke in the house... That was before smoke alarms but she woulda gone thru smoke alarm after smoke alarm had they been around... Woulda worn 'um slap out... Sho nuff would...

~

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Newport Boy
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 11:50 AM

This sounds like recipes (plural). Yesterday's review of Kettners in the Guardian.

Phil

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Becca72
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 11:19 AM

My mother was a terrible cook and most meals were the recipe from hell.

Her version of Americal Chop Suey was: 1 lb of the cheapest, greasiest hamburger money can buy, a chopped large yellow onion and.....canned spagetti. If Chef Boyardee was on sale, so be it, but usually we got the store brand which is usually much worse if that's possible. The key to the entire meal is to make sure that somehow everything is overdone, yet the whole mess is still cold in the middle.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: SINSULL
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 11:01 AM

My worst meals have been accidents of fate and ill timing. It is cruel to laugh at the incompetent.

Peas in spaghetti sauce is an Italian thing. My friend's mother who spoke English as a second language prepared her sauce that way once in a while. But her sauce was a day long labor of love and was pure heaven. There is no excuse for making garlic bread wuthout butter.

That said, my worst experience was Thanksgiving at my brother's many years ago. His wife had taken a course in authentic Chinese cooking and served a chicken with it's head still on. Or maybe it was a duck. Whatever it was it wasn't turkey and we were all bitterly disappointed.

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Megan L
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 10:54 AM

because then they would have nothing to moan about

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Dec 08 - 10:42 AM

If you know it is going to be bad, why do you go there? Why don't you invite this person out to a restaurant meal if you have an annual meal obligation?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Alice
Date: 13 Dec 08 - 09:15 PM

Food writers discuss their worst meals ever:
Salon magazine
Boiled duck embryos, lobster foam, and freeze-dried steak wrapped in washcloth!

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Joe_F
Date: 13 Dec 08 - 09:07 PM

We had a tinned "fruit cup," predominantly gooseberries and obviously a sop to current health hints on station JWRB. Once having disposed of this bit of medical hugger-muggery, we surged on happily through one of the ghastliest meals I ever ate in my life. On second thought I can safely say, _the_ ghastliest. There is no point in describing it, and to tell the truth a merciful mist has blurred its high points. There was too much spice where there should be none; there was sogginess where crispness was all-important; there was an artificially whipped and heavily sweetened canned-milk dessert where nothing at all was wanted.
And all through the dinner, in the small, hot, crowded room, we drank lukewarm Muscatel, a fortified dessert wine sold locally in gallon jugs, mixed in cheese-spread glasses with equal parts of a popular bottled lemon soda. It is incredible, but it happened.
-- M. F. K. Fisher, quoted by W. H. Auden in _A Certain World_ s.v. Eating

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 08 - 08:08 PM

Maybe you could arrange for her to do the Farewell Dinner for the Bush Administration? I'm just saying. Not just dessert, but just deserts.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 13 Dec 08 - 07:43 PM

Far from topping herself it sounds like "she" has been attempting murder ...

Subject: BS: The Recipe From Hell
From: gnu
Date: 13 Dec 08 - 07:37 PM

Well, this time, she topped herself. And, that is saying something! I can't imagine this one ever being surpassed, but maybe saying that is tempting fate. And, I forgot to bring my usual appetizer, a Zantac 75.

It sucked. Terrible spaghetti sauce. But, that wasn't "the topper". I knew there was only a slight chance it might be decent as I have been going there for family dinners for over twenty years. It was the peas, carrots, corn and green beans... in spaghetti sauce... I mean, that's just adding insult to injury.

The garlic bread was sopping mushy with cheap garlic butter which I doubt had any butter in it. The "Caesar" salad was soaked with "No Name" Ranch dressing and the croutons were stale (Seriously, figure that one out!!). The "cheesecake" was topped with runny caramel syrup and the crust was so full of sugar that I could SEE the crystals.

The tea was okay.

Anyone else know someone who can take a simple recipe and "tweak" it until it's hellishly disgusting?

Oh dear, another cramp. I gotta go back outside. Maybe I could hook her up with NASA? She means well, though... I think....