Instant Failure
One early August morning, after reading for a while, I wanted to eat some instant oatmeal for breakfast. I am not a good cook and I have experienced several baking catastrophes over the years. I have burned several pizzas, chicken nuggets, and tater tots in an attempt to get them crispy. I will not even relate my bacon burning stories, but you should know that over the summer I paid my brothers in poptarts to make me breakfast sandwiches.
Once around the age of 12 I was very excited to bring a fresh baked banana bread to a picnic. Unfortunately it exploded (i.e. puffed up and would have exploded had my mother not turned the oven off) because I put 1 ¾ cups instead of teaspoons of baking soda in it.
On another occasion, I decided to mix a loaf of bread with a whisk which evoked criticism from my sisters. Upon seeing this my mother said, “No daughter of mine should use a whisk to make bread.” The water to flour ratio seemed off every time. First I added too much flour, so I evened it out with water, but then there was too much water, and so on and so on. You can only imagine the size of the loaf I ended up with! Then, to the chagrin of my sisters, I decided to add pink food coloring. I did not realize that food coloring does not mix well with the rough texture of bread, and since the pink did not mix thoroughly, I kept adding colors until I ended up with a giant tie dye loaf that barely fit on the sheet tray! Once it came out of the oven, it smelled sooo good! And if you cut a piece and put it in the toaster to make sure the inside was thoroughly baked, it tasted delicious! And the best part? Because it looked like an atrocity, no one wanted to eat it and I enjoyed homemade bread for at least a week!
Unfortunately even the children I babysit pay the price for my inability in the kitchen. I do not blame them for not wanting to eat the burnt bagel pizzas and burnt pigs in a blanket. Nor do I blame them for the questioning looks they gave me as I frustratedly talked to the pancakes asking the pancakes why they would not cook only to realize that I hadn’t actually turned on the griddle!
But making instant oatmeal is so easy! All you have to do is put the water and the oatmeal in the cup, stir it around, and put it in the microwave. But beware! The mug you decide to use is important! The mug I chose to use once said “COFFEE AND JESUS” But now it just says “AND JESUS.” It also has some pretty metallic paint on it, which I did not realize was metallic until I pulled the mug out of the microwave and burnt two of my fingers.
Are the blisters on my hand a sign that I have failed the trial by fire? Should I stay out of the kitchen? Or am I called to learn from this instant failure and to persevere on? While I do not know the answers to these questions, I do know that if you want a hat or a scarf and you offer me food, it just might work!
