My Latest Kitchen Volcano by Carla Damron

I have never been called a domestic goddess. In truth, few would use the words “domestic” and “Carla” in the same sentence. My cooking skills are legendary---and by that I mean, legendarily awful. I can’t remember the last time someone asked me for a recipe. Wait, that’s not true, I’m often asked to recount the detailed steps for making “Ice” handed down by my mother (the trick is putting the ice tray in the freezer with the openings UP).

It’s been hard on my poor husband, who doesn’t love cooking either. I try though. At least once a week, I attempt a meal that might even present leftovers to be eaten later. Here’s how the conversation often goes:

Jim calls: “What are you thinking about for dinner?”

“I thought I’d make some spaghetti.”

A long, thoughtful pause, and then, “You could, or we could just eat out.”

To give him proper credit, he does actually eat my culinary efforts. I think we both take comfort that the restaurant option is as an easy out.

Yesterday, I started imagining that fall might one day come to SC, and that got me thinking about soup. Google produced an easy beef stew recipe, so I went to the store, purchased fresh ingredients, and went to work. I thought about how pleasantly surprised Jim would be when he opened the door to fragrant beef aromas, thanks to me, domestic sub-goddess, Carla.

If witnesses had seen what happened next, what would they say? “She got overconfident?” “It was an understandable mistake?” “Thank God they live near restaurants?”

The broth, though tasty, seemed thin. My mama had taught me, years ago, to thicken with flour or cornstarch. I found the cornstarch first, put a 3-4 tablespoons in a measuring cup, added some of the broth, stirred, and dumped it into the stew. Just call me Rachel Ray.

And then.

It was as though my stewpot turned into a cauldron. Foam bubbled up. So … much…. foam. I grabbed the measuring cup and did my best to scoop it out but it was like Alka Seltzer gone amok in there. What had happened? I felt like I was living in an episode of I Love Lucy. I glanced at the pantry and found, sitting innocently on the shelf, the cornstarch. I grabbed the box from the counter to see what I had used by mistake—baking soda.

I grabbed my phone and Googled, “will too much baking soda kill you?” and learned that it wasn’t necessarily deadly. Maybe I could serve the stew anyway, once it lost its three-inch head of foam. But then I tasted it.  It was salty and odd. Bread dough odd. Weird on the tongue odd. No way it would pass as edible, even coming from me.

From the freezer I grabbed some packaged frozen thing, warmed it up, and put it on the stove. When Jim came home and entered the kitchen, he eyed the two options. “What happened here?” he asked, his voice edged with dread.

“Cornstarch shouldn’t look so much like baking soda and that’s all I’m saying about that,” I replied, and he knew better than to push. As we ate our bland, microwaved meal, I was pretty sure he was thinking what I was.

Thank God we live near restaurants.

I often say that events are either good experiences, or good material. This was the latter. Has something like this ever happened to you? Have you thought about including them in your writing? I have two characters who are notoriously bad cooks, so….