Jello Explosion of 1997

I can't remember whose idea it was to use a blender to mix up my Jell-O, I’m sure one of my evil friends who knew my knowledge of cooking appliances is limited. It was strawberry Jell-O and my first attempt at making it. Again with the whole "directions on the box" thing really isn't descriptive enough for some, namely me. The fruit was diced and once I got this Jell-O mixed in the blender my plan was to add the fruit, chill it and serve it up to the family later with pride. Common sense governs you would place the blender top on before hitting one of those buttons to mix, but at this point I'm all caught up in the confusion as to what button to use. Apparently hitting the high button was clear enough and the mixing process started. Let me digress and mention that the magic eraser hadn't been invented yet. We had red stains from one end of the kitchen to the other by the time I found the off button on the blender. We lived next to the airport at the time and the noise and clatter from that fiasco; the neighbors thought a 747 had just flown over the hood. It looked like a scene from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. At the time our kitchen was painted mint green, I know what your thinking, and with the red Jell-O splatters all over walls the paint looked more like an angel food confetti cake. It took months before we stop discovering hidden red splatters about the kitchen. It was years before I made Jell-O again and I was supervised, it was for my protection as well as my grandchildrens.

Who Cares If She Can Cook?

Well honestly, I do care if I can cook or not. It's not for the lack of trying believe you me! At the ripe age of 47 I jut don't see it happening even if Rachel Ray stood by my side and coached me. It's been done before, the whole coaching thing. As well as an attempted cooking class back in the late 80's, three weeks into the class, they "recommended" I find another "hobby." The class wasn't any fun anyway and brought back horrors of my Home EC class in high school where they only let me do the clean-up.

One of my favorite, well I should say my families favorite story, of one of many of my cooking fiasco's, took place in an apartment I was leasing that was on the second floor. I was engaged at the time and wanted to attempt to surprise him with some brownies. Now we aren't talking about from scratch, just from the box with the directions on the back. I have to digress a moment to add that those boxed cooking things like brownies, cakes, cookies are a great invention with all or most of the ingredients all wrapped up in a box are awesome, but still not really user-friendly for someone with limited cooking skills like myself. So, as I was saying about the box of brownies ..I made sure that I had all the ingredients, checked out the buttons on the stove etc..I get it all together and ready for the oven. It was quite a mess to clean up as I recall. On the back of the box it has different times to cook the brownies at, one stating a different temperature for higher elevation. Well that threw me into panic mode wondering if living on the second floor would be the different cooking temp. I tried to reach my mom, sisters, and friends, calling as far as Miami from Maine and finally reached my brother-in-law. After he stopped laughing he instructed me that higher elevation referred to someone living in the mountains or some crap like that and told me the correct temp to cook them at.

After all that mess, panic, completed brownies, and clean-up I was emotionally exhausted and the brownies were dry and kind of black and hard on the side of the pan. They were not the success I'd hoped for and off into the trash 3 days later they went with about three small slivers out of the whole pan gone.