Saturday, April 19, 2008

Baked Beans Fiasco

Shelley Galloway always shares her stories... so here’s mine. My grandson’s third birthday was last week. His parents had his kids, other parents and we grandparents over for barbecued chicken. I offered to bring baked beans. Not just any old beans, but homemade. I have a great recipe from the Barefoot Contessa I wanted to try.

These beans took 6-8 hours to cook. First problem: My bean pot wasn’t big enough. No problem, I crammed everything in, anyway. Of course a few hours later my oven was a disaster. The sad part came later. When it was time to go to the party, the casserole was still piping hot. I placed it in one of those shopping bags with handles, the kind you get at Macy’s or Nordstrom. The plan was, carry the beans in that. When my husband parked and I reached for the bag by the handles. My thought was to put my hands underneath the bottom. Before I could, the bottom of the bag ripped out. The casserole crashed onto the sidewalk and broke. Beans everywhere! I just about cried, but was too busy helping my husband scoop beans into the half of the casserole dish that wasn’t smashed to bits. “At least we won’t add to methane gas pollution tonight,” he joked. Ha ha, right? We dropped the mess into the trash, then headed inside. The pun part was that everyone there shared similar stories of their own food disasters, even my daughter, who’d once dropped a cake she’d made for a friend’s baby shower.


It’s nice to know I’m not the only one. What about you? Any food disasters you want to share?

Until next time,
Ann Roth
www.annroth.net

3 comments:

Jennifer Faye said...

Ann, I'm so sorry about your beans, but your story had me rolling. I liked it so much I read it to my husband and he laughed too. What mess.

I had to think for a while about a food story, mind you we have really big parties for my children's birthdays since their first bdays and thankfully not many disasters. My one child has hers in the summer and we always grill. The one year my dh thought he was doing something great and got angus burgers to go with all the other food. Let me tell you that those burgers were so loaded with grease that they overflowed the grease can and kept catching on fire even though we put down aluminum foil to keep down the burning. Then at one point my entire grill went up in two or three foot flames. They slammed the lid shut and the fire still wouldn't go out. Dd taped the whole thing as my guests all rushed around trying to pull the burgers from the grill without getting grilled themselves and then smother the flames. Ugh!!! Afterwards everyone laughed and I told them that was the entertainment portion of the evening. Good thing we had other meat besides those horrible burgers. I don't think I'll ever buy those again.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Ann and Jennifer, for making my Sunday morning!

Jennifer, I can just see those flames. Ack! You're lucky you have all that on tape.

Ann, I had to laugh~I've just become a fan of the Barefoot Contessa...mainly because she just looks so calm and cool when she cooks. Regrettably, so far I haven't mastered her grace in the kitchen. Ann, I know you're a great cook...maybe you just need to master the delivery part! thanks for the fun story.

Shelley

Anonymous said...

Jennifer- That's so funny about the flames!! And I'm glad I made you laugh with my bean story. When it happened, I was both startled and disappointed. I tried to work up some tears, but they wouldn't come. Because it WAS and IS funny. :-)

Shelley- You reminded me of something else, that sometimes the Barefoot Contessa makes a mess when she cooks. Lucky lady probably has someone to clean it up for her. But hey, I guess messes are okay. :-)