Sunday, December 25, 2022

When things go terribly wrong.

This post is for all of you who had a thing or two go wrong with your holiday meal. As I write this it is Christmas Day, and I still can’t wrap my head around the disaster that was yesterday’s meal. This meal had been planned weeks in advance. The house looked beautiful and glowed with the soft warmth of fairy lights twinkling in five trees of various sizes. Christmas music was playing in the background, a fire crackled in the fireplace; everything was picture perfect…or so it seemed.

Quite early the day went to hell in a hand-basket. I had brined my turkey breast (I won’t even go into the difficulty of that considering the pipe to my pot filler had frozen because our high temperature was 5°F) the day before. When I got up Christmas Eve morning (at the butt crack of dawn) I removed the turkey breast from the brine, rinsed it and patted it dry, rubbed it with herbs, lined my 6-quart slow cooker with celery, onion, and baby carrots, and slowly lowered the turkey breast in. I filled the cavity with aromatics and turned it on High setting, setting a kitchen timer for an hour, at which point I would lower the setting to Low, and let it simmer, filling the house with the scent of turkey goodness for the next six hours. At this point, quite pleased with myself, I pressed on with my frantic day.

When the timer went off an hour later, I set it to Low, and continued on. An hour hence, when my nostrils weren’t being tickled by luscious turkey aroma, I peeked through the glass lid of the slow cooker. Huh. Nothing looked different. I took the lid off and my turkey was still cold. My expensive slow cooker, purchased a mere 13 months prior, had given up the ghost.

I got in touch with number two son, Andrew (the child who once, on the morning of Thanksgiving, pummeled a turkey breast that had not thawed after three days in the refrigerator – apparently when I shoved the behemoth into the refrigerator, I moved the temperature up to the “North Pole” setting, and it remained frozen all the while I thought it was thawing nicely, but that’s another story), and we jointly decided that it was far too dodgy to cook that turkey via another method after it had been, essentially, sitting at room temperature for two hours. So out went the crockpot, turkey and all (with a mighty crash into the trashcan), out came the old back up crockpot that I’ve had for decades into which I shoved a roast beef.


While my old reliable (read: cheap) slow cooker chugged along, I decided to serve a house cocktail that I had prepped that morning and sampled perhaps a bit too much. When asked about it (it, at least, was a success), I replied that it was called Rudolph’s Gay Spritzer…errr, Rudolph’s Spritzy Titzer. I mean, Rudolph’s Tipsy Spritzer! Yeah.

As we opened gifts and chatted, hoping beyond hope that the beef would be juicy and tender, it wasn’t. Because of all of the goings-on earlier that day, there just wasn’t enough time to thoroughly cook the beef to succulent goodness and we ended up with beef-tasting shoe leather that my son and daughter-in-law (God love them) ate, commenting on its “good flavor” (and doesn’t that just say everything — similar to when you describe someone as having “a good personality”), as well as the accompanying sides that were all designed to be served with turkey — mashed potatoes, dressing, corn pudding, green beans, cranberry salad, and rolls. Because I’d kept giving the beef more time, the side dishes over cooked. The bread in the dressing had turned to sawdust; the corn pudding was mistaken for cornbread. The Rhodes rolls that I had taken out of the freezer and put onto the counter at 6:30 AM had still not risen by 3 PM, but out of pure orneriness, I baked them anyway. We needed an electric knife to cut them open. Fortunately, the pie was a success. I had bought it.

So, if you’re ever having difficulty preparing a meal, I want you to remember this post. It happens to the best of us. The meal may not have been enjoyable, but I guarantee you this is one Christmas Eve dinner we will never forget!


11 comments:

  1. Oh, my, that is Christmas movie material. Well, it will probably be a very memorable Christmas that you will look back on fondly, laughing a little as someone says "remember that time when". Or just have more tipsy drizzles or whatever they were called and forget it all happened.

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  2. Oh Pattie I’m cry-laughing as I read your post to my husband and daughter! What a hoot! I don’t mean to laugh at the misery you endured but I think we’ve all been there, and we relate, and you wrote it up so well! 😂

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  3. Merry Christmas, Lori and Linda! I’m over it. I told my son and daughter-in-law that I owe them a turkey dinner in the future. I put the beef and its gravy into the oven at 275° today and let it bake for three hours. It was delicious!. So I had a nice meal today, I can’t speak for my son and daughter-in-law. At any rate, I did have a good time writing up the experience. Glad you enjoyed it.

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  4. What a shame that your meal turned disaster but I hope your enjoyed the company and still had a good Christmas. You are a great story teller..

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  5. What a waste of all the preparation and food! I love your fireplace and festive decorations! Merry Christmas to you and yours! Meow, Stanley..you are so behaved and not knocking down the tree?

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  6. I am sorry to hear that your meal turned to disaster. Dont worry about it dear friend! Life is full of ups and downs. And life goes on. Merry Christmas to you. Happy and healthy 2023 to you and your family. Bye the way i loved all photos you shared in this post. Greetings.

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  7. I told my peeps that next year I will cook something totally different - one that doesn't have us all starved by 3 p.m. and me standing and standing and standing...a crockpot dish it shall be! I bet your leftovers are delish - isn't that always the way it works out? (:

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  8. Love the photos today, especially Stanley!

    This meal means all the tragedies you could experience are done now and 2023 will be a banner year!

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  9. I always say..’people make the party’ …therefore your meal was lovely because your loved ones were there to share your obvious efforts …and some good store bought pie!! Your home looks so festive and Stanley is adorable. Your description of your day is so funny and very relatable to hosts everywhere, we’ve all had similar experiences! Thanks for a great story and I wish you restful and relaxing day. Cheers, V.

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  10. this was so funny. Beautifully funny story with photos. Love your latest post too. Gotta copy down some of these recipes.

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  11. I was hooked as soon as I read the title! Your account of a Christmas gone wrong was so entertaining and, of course, real. We've all been there, working so hard to make things memorable on this most special of days, only to have it all go awry. I admire how you soldiered on -- and kept your (always wonderfully wry) sense of humor! I agree with the other comments that for better or worse, it'll be a Christmas that you'll always remember and laugh about. I'm sure your son and daughter-in-law agree. 😀🎄💖

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Thank you so much for commenting, I love every one of them! I am, however, unable to respond to anonymous comments.