A whole lot of failure and sometimes, maybe, a little success

I think the title of this post basically sums up what cooking is for me, but with this addition: that the successes are so rewarding that I'm often willing to overlook the failures. Cooking is about experimentation, at least for me. Sure, I use recipes, but I also tweak them, discard them completely, invent something new, add an ingredient on a whim, completely misread instructions and inadvertently do something that dramatically changes the results...basically, it's a crapshoot, but that's a terrible way to refer to something you're going to put in your mouth, right? I mean, I know what a crapshoot is, but we all know what it sounds like, right?

I decided I'd share with you a few recent kitchen misfires since I'm not exactly your Martha Stewart type and I'm not afraid to say that things went wrong. I don't think any cook should be embarrassed to make a mistake, but then, that's much easier said than done. This is a photo of an apple chicken curry I made using a recipe on allrecipes.com, one of my fave sites. I hold the author of that recipe completely blameless since my first time making the recipe, I decided to incorporate a bunch of suggestions from the comments other people left, and to also add ingredients no one in fact suggested, and, in my final act of madness, decided to use a totally different cooking method. Basically, I made a completely different dish without test-driving the recipe I claimed to be using first. The results were edible, decent even, but a far cry from a true curry. I was disappointed.

Then there was the Sopa de Xim Xim incident. I had bought a cookbook called Hot & Spicy Latin Dishes at a used bookstore for a whopping twenty-five cents. I'm pretty sure it's out of print. Sopa de Xim Xim (Peanut Soup)  sounded awesome and different--it's got beef, onions, bell peppers, peanut butter. I like all of those things when they're together in Thai food, although there we are talking more about peanut sauce than peanut butter. Anyway, I decided to take my chances, except that the soup called for a habanero and I know I can be kind of a wimp about heat. It helpfully suggested that I could substitute three jalapenos, but for a reason I cannot now fathom, I was convinced this was a direct equivalence and would still be too hot. I made a big pot of the soup as directed, but with only 2 jalapenos. I tasted a small spoonful and it seemed ok, so I served it up for dinner, dug in, and tasted what was basically meat and veggies floating in liquidy peanut butter. Determined to fix it, I added some garlic and another jalapeno to try and give it some spice. That helped, but the damage had been done and I never could get past the idea that I was basically eating meat cooked in peanut butter. It turned my stomach, and my poor husband just couldn't win. If he didn't want to eat it, I was bummed. When he took an enthusiastic mouthful, I turned on him and shouted "I can't believe you're eating this!" Did I mention that cooking can kind of play with your emotions, especially when you've worked hard on something that no one--not even you--will eat? There's no photo of this one because it went down the drain, and I went to Taco Bell. That's right, the fruits of over 2 hours of labor were chalupas containing something that is definitely not actual meat.

So what is my point in telling you this? Well, it's because it's weirdly cathartic to share these little mishaps because it allows me to see that that's all they are--little mishaps. I didn't burn down my apartment, or get jalapenos in my eye (again, that is), or give anyone a food-borne illness. I just screwed up, and it happens to everyone, all the time. Actually, in the second instance, I didn't really screw up, I just took a chance that didn't pay off, and everyone does that all the time, too. Well, not everyone, but it's part of leading an exciting life where you actually try new things. So in the end, this post isn't really for you, dear reader, but for me. I accept my kitchen mishaps for what they are, and I vow to soldier on. Next adventure, please!