The best Christmas present I can give my family this year is to not cook for them.
You see, I am totally clueless about creating meals. I am like the anti Nigella Lawson.
Aside from having no idea about combining ingredients, I tend to overcook everything, often to the point of it being horribly burnt and completely inedible.
It’s why I’ve started putting my money directly into the bin. It certainly saves on time, effort, and smoke alarm overuse.
So in short, I am the opposite of a cook (a ‘kooc’, I suppose) and for years my koociness has become the stuff of legend with family and friends.
On one occasion, I almost set fire to a house whilst making a chicken sandwich.
I wish that were a joke.
I put frozen chicken straight into a pan of boiling hot oil. This resulted in several minutes of excitement where my panicked flatmate hit the kitchen floor, whilst I ran screaming into the backyard with a pan billowing metre-high flames.
On another occasion, I prepared an ambitious dessert for some friends (I don’t know why us koocs insist on trying ambitious meals that are completely beyond us, but we just do).
Anyway, the recipe called for me to line a bowl with Swiss roll cake slices, then to pour in a gelatinous mixture of blueberry juice.
Unfortunately, I ignored the instruction to wait until the mixture had partially set, and just whacked the watery concoction straight into the bowl. So when I upended it and presented it to my guests, the purple liquid had soaked through the cake mix, creating a soggy mess. It looked for all the world like a brain. A disintegrating brain.
Yummo. Ice-cream with that, anyone?
So as a Christmas present to you, may I present the FOAS Special Kooc’s Guide to Christmas Cooking!
1. Prepare ingredients.
2. Combine ingredients.
3. Cook.
4. Taste.
5. Drink something strong to remove taste.
6. Throw in bin.
7. Phone for pizza delivery.
Happy holidays, everyone!
Please listen to me, people. Nothing Ms FOAS has described in this post is false or exaggerated in any way. NOTHING. As one of the luckless “friends” to be both startled and nauseated by the culinary monstrosity that was and is, to this day, referred to as “the brain dessert”, I urge you to avoid anything Ms FOAS attempts to serve you unless you have witnessed her opening the packet and putting it upon a serving dish with no additional intervention. Harsh stuff, you may be thinking. “Trust me”, are my final words on the subject …
The Brain Dessert was not quite the culinary triumph I’d hoped for.
do you remember that nite i made you pasta and butter? i remember you telling me you loved to cook that one too
Yep, it’s one of my more complicated meals.