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Cooking on Friday the 13th
Aug. 14th, 2010 12:16 amThree days... three days after my kitchen skills were so casually mocked. Whitney was away this evening and I was on my own for dinner, so I went to the kitchen at seven o'clock with the plan of cooking one of the burgers from the freezer, chopping it up and guddling it together with pasta and cheese in a preparation not unlike a flat lasagne. It's not healthy or sophisticated, but it's simple and a nice comfort food - when you make it right.
My greatest mistake took place before I'd even started, in the separation of the burgers. I press my own out from packaged ground beef, because they're a lot cheaper that way, but even though we started putting wax paper between them before putting them in the freezer, it's really a matter of luck whether they separate readily when they come out. This wasn't one of those times, and after trying to dunt two of them apart on the edge of the chopping block, I resorted to my standard backup method - I took the breadknife out and wiggled it between them. After a couple of centimetres it shot through it, didn't stop at all and with all my strength behind it, I rammed the sharp point of the knife a significant distance across my left index finger.
For the next few minutes, dinner progress was forgotten as I ran my finger under the tap, pressing the top of it and hoping that it would stay on, trying not to think about how deep the cut was and wondering if the bleeding was ever going to stop. After a while I retrieved a tissue from the living room, formed my left hand into a rigid OK symbol with the tissue in between to keep pressure on it, and looked for the antiseptic. It wasn't in the bathroom, so I phoned Whitney to ask, but about twenty calls later I was beginning to get the feeling that she was never going to pick it up. So I gave up and looked down in the basement, where I found it in a box that had never been unpacked. I poured it over my finger, it stung a lot, and then I wrapped a plaster tightly around it - I haven't looked underneath it since and I'm hoping it'll just be healing away without intervention.
With one hand Elastoplasted into a permanent Phoenix Wright pointing action, though, making dinner would prove difficult - I did what I could with one and a half hands, as not a lot of it required a whole lot of interaction - a frying pan, a pot of water, and that was all that was really needed. After about fifteen minutes I did my best to pour the pasta into a sieve, the process being made very awkward with only the use of one hand, and I left the burger on for rather longer than I'd intended as a result. Eventually I got the pasta back into the pan minus the water, and turned around to find the cheese. I was thinking that at least America had introduced me to the concept of bagged grated mozzerella because I was in no position to prepare any myself, then I opened the fridge and found that we'd run out.
I therefore had for my dinner: One burger, overdone in black Scotch outdoor barbecue style, about a cubic inch of the only available cheese that I found, a misjudged amount of completely plain pasta, and about half my own finger.
My greatest mistake took place before I'd even started, in the separation of the burgers. I press my own out from packaged ground beef, because they're a lot cheaper that way, but even though we started putting wax paper between them before putting them in the freezer, it's really a matter of luck whether they separate readily when they come out. This wasn't one of those times, and after trying to dunt two of them apart on the edge of the chopping block, I resorted to my standard backup method - I took the breadknife out and wiggled it between them. After a couple of centimetres it shot through it, didn't stop at all and with all my strength behind it, I rammed the sharp point of the knife a significant distance across my left index finger.
For the next few minutes, dinner progress was forgotten as I ran my finger under the tap, pressing the top of it and hoping that it would stay on, trying not to think about how deep the cut was and wondering if the bleeding was ever going to stop. After a while I retrieved a tissue from the living room, formed my left hand into a rigid OK symbol with the tissue in between to keep pressure on it, and looked for the antiseptic. It wasn't in the bathroom, so I phoned Whitney to ask, but about twenty calls later I was beginning to get the feeling that she was never going to pick it up. So I gave up and looked down in the basement, where I found it in a box that had never been unpacked. I poured it over my finger, it stung a lot, and then I wrapped a plaster tightly around it - I haven't looked underneath it since and I'm hoping it'll just be healing away without intervention.
With one hand Elastoplasted into a permanent Phoenix Wright pointing action, though, making dinner would prove difficult - I did what I could with one and a half hands, as not a lot of it required a whole lot of interaction - a frying pan, a pot of water, and that was all that was really needed. After about fifteen minutes I did my best to pour the pasta into a sieve, the process being made very awkward with only the use of one hand, and I left the burger on for rather longer than I'd intended as a result. Eventually I got the pasta back into the pan minus the water, and turned around to find the cheese. I was thinking that at least America had introduced me to the concept of bagged grated mozzerella because I was in no position to prepare any myself, then I opened the fridge and found that we'd run out.
I therefore had for my dinner: One burger, overdone in black Scotch outdoor barbecue style, about a cubic inch of the only available cheese that I found, a misjudged amount of completely plain pasta, and about half my own finger.
