The kitchen Gremlin. I have one. And he only makes his presence known when I’m cooking for company. I do occasionally like to cook outside of my comfort zone, and in the past I’ve discovered new dishes and taste combinations that I hadn’t expected, and was so blown away that I couldn’t wait to master and introduce them to my family and fellow foodies. But then, HE appears and all hell breaks loose!
I have two dishes that I have previously produced in world-class fashion and couldn’t wait to share with others. One is the classic béarnaise sauce. I loves me some steak, and I can’t think of a more perfect, decadent accompaniment than a just-made, thick, buttery béarnaise. The first three times that I attempted this sauce it came out perfect! I couldn’t wait to have the gang over for a French gorgy, and watch their eyes roll up into the backs of their heads after they took their first bite of a perfectly cooked dry-aged filet mignon smothered in the crack cocaine of butter sauces.
But the Gremlin had other ideas and decided at the last minute that a greasy version of egg drop soup would (for some evil reason), be the only sauce that came off my cook top. A hurried second attempt produced a scrambled egg dish that looked like yellow cottage cheese. What the hell? I had this down! I could feel the ghost of Julia Child bitch slapping the back of my head as I whipped up a sorry version of a Dijon crème sauce in its place.
My second Gremlin dish is one that I initially tried on a dare.
Read More›