I Give Up

My track record is just getting worse and worse, so I'm quitting. I am never going to do it again, so don't ask! I'm done making food for people.

Because, I'm not really that bad of a cook. And no one knows it but me.

A few weeks ago, we had a little bonfire at a friend's house, that was supposed to also include chili. Mmmmm chili. I've made it a handful of times, and had only scorched the whole pot once. But that was when I was fresh away from home and probably the first time I'd made bulk sized food away from my Mom's tutelage. It was a disaster. There was no "avoid the bottom" and eat the rest. You could taste the acrid, carcinogenic flavor of burnt chili in a bite. In a sniff.

And then it was all recreated on that fateful night at Sam's. I am blaming the gas stove...

The most infamous is still probably that one time I burnt Roberta's birthday pot roast to a crisp...no. Worse than a crip. To charcoal.

Whenever I try to be nice to the guys at work, it seems to backfire. Aside from the fact that they all seem to be rather picky about what they will and won't eat, I never seem to get it right! Why do I bother? The lady that worked in our office before me -- or so I am told -- spoiled the guys by bringing in treats and making apple cider and all sorts of goodies. Every once and a while, I try to bring something in to make it up to them that they lost her and got little ol' me. So far, I've managed:

• a goopy cheesecake that wasn't cooked all the way (I've had several disasters involving cheesecake)
• a cake that literally would not stay on the fork because it just disintegrated when exposed to the air
• soupy apple crisp
• and now... burned pumpkin crisp

Remember the post about the pumpkin crisp? It was delightful and SO easy to make. I've been wanting another, and I decided to share it with the guys.

The rack in the oven was too high, and I was trying to get ready for the day while it was baking. When I got out of the shower, I could smell it in the kitchen. I went down and pulled it out of the oven, even though the timer wasn't quite going off, and saw that the pecans on top were burned.

Nooooooooooooooooo! There is nothing worse than burned pecans! (Ok, there are lots of things... burned popcorn, for example.)

That wasn't the only thing wrong with it, either. The pecans were burned, but the pumpkin wasn't quite cooked all the way. I also used the wrong cake mix. Instead of a regular yellow cake, I used butter yellow. You would think that it might be a good substitution? No. Wrong. Don't do it.

Aside from the dishes not turning out well, we need to also remember that stint where I kept setting my stove on fire...but I'm pretty sure that was just for me. But maybe it wasn't. And also! Cooking is dangerous. Remember when I kept slicing off my fingers?

Either way, I think this proves exactly why I eat out so much...it's SO much easier with much less risk of burning something down.