January 25, 2000
Chicken Clamp II
by Joshua Carden
Yuck! I must say that I should have known that there were cooking experiences to make mine pale in comparison. Fortunately, each of the responses I received were as tasteful (yes, pun intended) as possible. Much like swimming, I highly suggest that you wait the standard thirty minutes after eating before you dive in. Are you ready? Are you sure?
Well, this certainly cannot top your chicken/c-clamp story [Editor’s Note: Flattery will get you nowhere…but it will get you the number one spot!], but once when I was eating ice cream, I found a piece of cardboard in it. I threw out the remaining ice cream and washed the card board and sent it along with a letter to the company. they were really nice and sent me $10 worth of free coupons.
-----Charlotte
When I was 12, I tried public school for one term. Generally I packed a brown bag lunch; however, ONE time I bought a cafeteria lunch. BIG mistake. Anyway, I opened my little carton of milk, and there floating on the top, was a bunch of grass. Now, if I hadn’t decided the very first day that home school was a hundred times better than public school - that would have decided it.
------ Michelle Shook, Logan, UT
[Editor’s note: Don’t even THINK about ordering the meat loaf there!]
I began my cooking career at the vivacious age of two-years-old with my very own line of backyard mud pies. Although this is most definitely how every world-famous chef starts out, I betcha 10-1 their mom’s didn’t try tasting those first wet dirt creations like my mom did. In fact, she’s pretty daring when I think about it. She passes our family’s test of courage every time. And I’m not talking about braving any twisters here, either. Our test is more along the lines of eating whatever “food” the little kid in the house makes, such as the vinegar, orange juice concentrate, red food coloring, chopped up onion and bologna conglomerations. Talk about gag-me-with-a-ten-foot-spoon-and-call-me-Sally-Jane kind of stuff! Somehow she lovingly manages to down a bit to make her child think they’ve made something delicious. And, lucky for her, we’ve been getting quite better throughout the years....
------Olivia Johnson, CA
[Editor’s note: Olivia, I don’t care HOW good your mud pies have gotten… J ]
When I was a kid, I happened to be visiting my Aunt in an Atlanta, GA suburb. She was pouring a well-known brand of soft drink from the Atlanta area for all of us and couldn’t get the last bit out.
“Oh, it must have turned to ice in the back of the fridge.” She turned the bottle upside down to her mouth but would not come out of the bottle. Maybe a knife would loosen the ice to come out! No..... because it wasn’t ice. It turned out to be a small sponge.
yuck!
-----Cindy, KY
I was cooking eggs for my mom, dad, and 3 sisters. I decided to do scrambled eggs. I had already put in 5 and was putting in another and I put it in the bowl to stir...it was red. I didn’t think anything of it...don’t know why I didn’t but I didn’t...so I cooked it. Yes...with the other eggs. Well...serving time came and I had served everyone...the red was by that time pretty scrambled in...not even a hint of red. My mom went to take the first bite. She ate it. I don’t remember why nobody else ate any but she only took one bite and went to take another and then noticed a red streak. Needles to say I had weeks of cooking lessons. I now specialize in eggs.
-----Hannah, MI
[Editor’s note: Hannah got an “A” in Animal Husbandry and a “B-“ in Home Economics that year.]
One night, for lack of anything else to do, my mom and I decided the we would make a real cheesecake. As I am an incurable sweet tooth(though this disaster almost cured it), and cheesecake is my very favorite dessert, I did not object at all to helping. As we started to gather the ingredients, I had this bright idea that it would be really fun if we could make some homemade playdough. Now assuming that you have younger siblings, you probably have made or at least played with playdough. Well, I was about nine at the time so playing with playdough was one of my very favorite pastimes. So we got the cookbooks out, made the graham cracker crust, Mom started the filling, and I began to make the playdough. As I scanned the recipe, I noticed that it said we needed four cups of salt. I thought that was sure a whole lot of salt, but I began to measure it out. I didn’t have a chance to finish measuring, because mom decided that I needed to help make the filling, so, the dutiful daughter that I am, I started to help with the filling while doing the playdough. Well, we finally finished, having put the cheesecake (with a cherry topping) in the fridge to chill for a while, me having long finished the playdough. I finally had a chance to play with it. There was something wrong with the playdough, but I didn’t really notice very much, and just went on playing. Now it was about 8:00 and I REALLY wanted some cheesecake, so we got it out of the fridge, and I had the pleasure of taking the first bite, as I did, fully expecting the wonderful, creamy, sweet taste of normal cheesecake, I realized that something was TERRIBLY wrong. the cheesecake almost tasted, well, salty, VERY salty. My mom tried it, and we agreed that it was awful. As I thought back, I finally came to the conclusion, that I had put four whole cups of salt, not in the playdough(which explained what was wrong with it), but in my cheesecake!! We thought we could make another one, but we had used the very last of the graham crackers. I still feel like crying just thinking about it. Actually that was the last time I have attempted to make a cheesecake. Though soon, I think I need to try again. “Oh, Mom, where’s the salt?”
----- Jennifer Carden, Weatherford, TX [Editor’s note: yes, this is my sister.]
Pepto anyone? I know I need it! Thank you for making the first reader-response column of this year a rousing success! If my stomach were any more roused I don’t think I could stand it! See you next time!