Disasters

Disasters

• chefjeb 16 years ago
  Let's expand this to comment on dinner party, party, kitchen or whatever disasters.
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• chefjeb 16 years ago said:
  Years ago my sister was getting married in a big church ceremony. The reception was at my brother's beautifully restored old home in New Orleans. The wedding was perfect. When we arrived at the reception --- no sign of the caterer. My sister was furious. The bar, thankfully, was our responsibility and was stocked. After 30 minutes of frantic telphoining and getting no response the hospital emergency room called and said the caterer had been hit by a speeding car that had run a red light and the van had flipped and she had broken her him and had other injuries. No food. No cake. Marilyn grabbed some relatives and sent them on missions. The first to a little convenience store to grab some chips, bread and some deli meats, or whatever their limited stock held. She went to a large mega-grocery and pleaded her case to the deli manager who rounded up some birthday cakes, loaned her some icing and helped decorate a beautiful five-tier cake complete with fresh flowers. Beautiful. I hit the seafood department and got shrimp, oysters, crabmeat, scallops, tasso, redfish and other good stuff including heavy cream, celery, red, yellow and green bellpeppers and onions. French Bread that only New Orelans can make, some beautiful salad stuff and the menu went to seafood linguine. By that time the guests were famished. It was a late morning wedding and the champagne, wine and spirits had kicked in. You've got to play the hand you are dealt.
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• thepiggs 16 years ago said:
  I had overseas guests and had taken them to my parents' house for lunch. Mom was preparing her "famous" spaghetti red when we heard a crash in the kitchen and a few choice works that I won't print.
  She had opened one of the cabinet doors by the stove and something fell out, crashing onto the counter and shattering, sending bits of glass everywhere, including the open pot of spaghetti that was ready to serve.
  We had delivered pizza, which, I'm sure, was much better than what was about to be served up, as spaghetti was something that was never that good at our house.
  Small blessing do appear at times. :)
  
  
  
  
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• tnacndn 16 years ago said:
  Oh Lordy, Just about every meal at my house seems to have some sort of disaster so my family is used to it. hahahaha
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• krumkake 16 years ago said:
  Ah yes, I have a FRESH disaster in my memory from Father's Day this past June. I was preparing a special meal for my husband,,,our daughter, niece, boyfriend and my mother were anxiously awaiting. My husband had just purchased a new rotisserie for our grill (the old one wasn't working), and he put the bird on the spit, went back into the house after all look well, only to see plumes of smoke filling the patio area a few moments later....something went terribly wrong with that rotisserie, and the bird was pretty much dragging on the grill bottom, causing small fires and smoke everywhere. As I was looking out the kitchen window viewing the situation, and contemplating on what I could have my daugther run to the store for, to replace the bird, I turned on the garbage disposal only to have the contents come spewing up the sink drain and fill the other side of the sink! We waited an hour for the roto-rooter guy, who after an hour, told us we had an "unfixable " issue with our pipes, and we would need to call someone during regular office hours and spend a couple thousand dollars to fix it. Let's just say that's when I started to cry...and that's when my husband announced that we were all going to Finn McCool's for the Sunday night chicken dinner special. What a Father's Day!!
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• tnacndn 16 years ago said:
  Sally you must have Wes Craven or some other horror movie writer for a relative. LOL
  Gem
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• notyourmomma 16 years ago said:
  When I met my husband and viewed his bachelor pad of a home I wasn't too sure he was the man for me. Let's just say his home was primitive and the kitchen was purely fiction. There was no working stove, he had a stove but used it as a kitchen cabinet. There were two floor levels in a 8 x 12 room, and 3 doors. No upper cabinets and dark purple upper cabinets sitting on the floor with a thick piece of plywood stretched across the top as a counter. The refrigerator was a lovely harvest gold circa 1968. His sink was a utility sink he had salvaged from a garage, no counter on either side and deep. It leaked badly underneath. The flooring was torn vinyl in various shades and layers, great for tripping someone.
  
  I married him anyway, and managed to serve dinners for 8 out of that kitchen using a hotplate, an electric skillet and lots of imagination. Until one fateful night., **Squeamish alert, stop reading if you are sensitive to injuries**
  I had made some wonderful crepes and filled them with chicken and mushrooms and was carrying the hot platter to the dining area where our guests were eating their salads and the toe of my shoe got caught in some of the peeling vinyl and I went face down on the floor. The platter broke in half and embedded a shard in my forearm. We spent the night at the emergency room, and the technicians and doctors were busy cleaning creamed chicken filling out of my arm. I ended up with a 6 inch scar and had to wear a sling for nearly three months to let the tendons heal.
  Needless to say, we started a remodeling project after that incident and it took us 8 months to level the floor, rearrange the floor plan and take out one of the doorways. In the end, we had lovely kitchen with lots of cabinet space and an unused sun room area became a part of the kitchen with an eat-in area. It was wonderful and worth every hour of hard work.
  
  It took me a few years before I could make the chicken crepes again. It used to be my favorite meal.
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• krumkake 16 years ago said:
  All I can say to that story, notyourmomma, is OOOOOOOUUCCHHH! Yikes, that must have hurt like a bugger!!
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• borinda 16 years ago said:
  Notyourmomma -- Wow! I've had a few kitchens remodeled and can definitely say your way of getting a project done far out-dramatizes any reason I have come up with. I am so glad that after pain, gooey mess in your arm, et al, that you have a great place now. You surely deserve it and a medal for coping. Poor, poor you.
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• notyourmomma 16 years ago said:
  Yep, it hurt like the dickens. My neighbors at the time, were so kind to give me "the klutz of the year award" at our next progressive dinner and that was more embarassing. We had a string of four houses and all of us got along so well, that we had progressive dinners on a bi-monthy basis, it was during my turn to serve the entree that I landed on the platter. So much for participation in the dinner club. Oh, how I miss those friends. It was fun because you could have a cocktail and no one had to drive and we just walked next door for the next course. Naturally we would try to out do each other, what is a little competition between friends? Sadly, we had to move and it broke up that friendly group.
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• notyourmomma 16 years ago said:
  I tried to make the pressed cuban sandwiches on my smooth top range. I have the skillet, I have the sandwich, I have the double foil wrapped brick.....what I don't have is a rubber floor. The brick slid off the sandwich when my back was turned and it hit the tile floor and cracked the tile into a million little pieces. I don't have a replacement tile. This floor came with the house and was laid in 1992. They don't even have tiles in the same dimension. Can't afford a whole new floor, so now we have a big old divot in front of the stove and it looks horrible. Yep, it is a diasaster, cuz I can't afford a new floor. Counting my blessings, it could have slid off and shattered the glass topped range. So, it could be worse.
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• thepiggs 16 years ago said:
  Try removing a good tile from behind the range, or other hidden place, and use that as a patch. You can cut a tile to fit the new hole, using a similar color. At least you will have a less obvious flaw.
  
  
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• notyourmomma 16 years ago said:
  Thank you for such a wonderful idea. Bless your heart. I've been from tile outlet to tile outlet and couldn't find a thing. This will be a great solution. Bless you dear.
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• lexluv101 15 years ago said:
  Ah, this one's easy. The worst party planning ever and a warning on black labs with bottomless pits for stomachs.
  
  My mom decided a few years back when I was a teenager that she would throw our first New Years Eve Party. She thawed out the Christmas candy she bakes every year and various food she had prepared. She then went to take a nap.
  
  We came out later only to discover our demon dog, a Labrador named Luke, had jumped up on the counters and eaten all the food and candy, along with a soft stick of butter. He then subsequently had diarrhea and vomited in the house while she had been napping. The smell was atrocious. In a frantic haste, she started cleaning and I started taking out the garbage.
  
  He followed me outside and knocked over a can of blue paint she had on the driveway where she had been touching up the outside trimming of the house. Blue paint then went over the driveway, and, yelling at him, he ran back into the house (THROUGH THE PAINT), getting blue paw prints on the floor. Thankfully the floor was tile and the paint inside wasn't hard to clean. The driveway paint is another story, and needless to say all visitors for the party were likely amused by our paw printed walkway and blue stained driveway.
  
  We ended up having to serve ordered pizza.
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• notyourmomma 15 years ago said:
  Oh my goodness. Now that is a mess of major proportions. Blue paint, dog poo. What a way to start the New Year!!
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