Day 24 - My Challenge

Remember how yesterday I posted that if someone asked me in the spur of the moment to prepare a dish with whatever I had in the refrigerator, I would put out the cereal box and bowls and start pouring out the milk?

Well, guess what? Today I proved that under extreme circumstances (and I mean extreme!) I am capable of figuring out how to turn on the stove (without burning down the house!)

We had invited my cousins Steve and Ilene over for dinner tonight as they are visiting in Paris this weekend. While I was enjoying life at a bachelorette party yesterday, hubby had carefully selected tonight’s menu and dutifully went out shopping for all the ingredients. I like it when he surprises me, so I didn’t even bother asking what he was making us for dinner on my way out the house this morning.

Then the worst of my nightmares came true: hubby called me up in the afternoon to tell me he had just been informed of a very important management meeting he had to attend that evening and he wouldn’t get home in time to prepare dinner.


Oh God, please, no.



TOTAL. PANIC. ATTACK.



There was no way I could call and cancel since I had no way to reach my cousins.

I could feel my feet going numb.

Hubby reassured me the menu he had selected was relatively easy to make: an entrée of green salad with roasted goat cheese on nut tartines and mushroom risotto for the main course! (thankfully he’d prepared dessert the night before: homemade tiramisu)

Uh-oh…. Salad, I figured I could handle (it's just washing the lettuce, right?). Risotto…. that’s another story. Isn’t that supposed to be like Italian or something? I barely know how to cook rice (and I’m talking about the one that come in a precooked bag you just dump in boiling water for 10mins), how in hell’s name was I going to make RISOTTO!!!!!!!

Couldn’t we be original and have tiramisu for the entrée, cereal for the main course and tiramisu again for dessert???

I could feel my hands going numb.

I got home and opened the cook book (as hubby was attending his freakin’ meeting I couldn’t even count on him being on the phone for moral support). I decided the only way I would be able to do this was to approach the problem in a structured way, just like I do when I have to handle a sensitive file at the office: spread out all the elements in front of me and proceed to organize them in a methodical and logical way before tackling the problem itself.

So out came the butter, and the garlic, and the onion, and the little green leaves I don’t know what they’re called, and the mushrooms and the wine, and the cubes of compact stuff you dump in boiling water, and the risotto grains.

I took a deep breath. I flexed my fingers. I rolled up my sleeves (oops, got butter on them in the process…) and decided to get on with it.

Following the instructions as closely as if they were the steps to disarm a bomb, slowly the mass of ingredients sitting in front of me started to look like a “Something”. I discovered I can chop, I can sizzle, I can boil, I can stir, I can pour (sort of) and best of all, I think I can even measure quantities!!!

I wont deny there were a few little mishaps in the process -- like when I mistook 120ml for 1.20L and poured the entire vegetable broth (or whatever it’s called) into the risotto… thankfully a quick look at the picture in the recipe book made me realize my mistake and my P.A. problem-solving instincts kicked in (preventing me from freeze-panicking). I drained the risotto into a separate iron bowl-like utensil and started over again…

Slowly my creation began to take form and by the time hubby got home all there was left to do was uncork the wine to let it breathe (by then, I could have used a little breathing exercise too!)

I am proud to report that dinner was served on time, no one was intoxicated and the cereal box stayed in the pantry!

Fned.