Worst meal at someone's home - Part 2

[paulraphael]

I went to Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago at the apartment of a friend who's a chef. She's married to a high school friend of mine who is not a chef. It was he who greeted us at the door, with a pained expression and a filthy apron and bags under his eyes. It turns out chef was flat on her back with stomach flu, but in the spirit of hardcore chefyness, had decided the meal must go on.

The apartment was one of those Brooklyn railroad flats with the tiny kitchen right off the bedroom. This allowed chef to bark orders at her surrogate between fits of doubling over and moaning. Her husband had been doing the cooking all afternoon, but she put him on entertainment duty and had me take over the kitchen as soon as my coat came off.

In her fever, chef had forgotten some details.

"Is there any sauce?"

"Oh, shit. Sauce. Can you make some sauce?"

"Ok. Do you have any wine?"

"Get it off the dining room table. See if one of the bottles looks cheaper than the others."

"What should I serve the turkey on?"

"I don't know. Look in those cabinets and see if anything's big enough."

That kind of thing.

The meal ended up being ok. Not as good as meals when our host is actually did the cooking, but perfectly edible.

Unfortunately, it wasn't perfectly digestible. My girlfriend and I, and likely all the other guests, picked up the virus from the bedridden chef and spent most of the night and the next day purging ourselves of all holiday cheer.

Edited May 29, 2008 by paulraphael (log)

[s_hustava]

Or it came out of a can? La Choy made--and still does, for all I know--a chop suey "kit," which had two cans of stuff--one with the meat'n'chunks, one with the crispy noodles for garnish. All mom had to supply was the rice. I think I'm remembering this right. Anyway, all I remember about the taste was salt! and tin! And we called the crispy noodles worms! (And, for the record, my mother now makes a delicious Asian style salad with them.)

Ugh, I repressed the memory of that crap. My Mother, who is a good woman but cannot cook a thing, loved it. She thought it was a gourmet treat.( her words)

I was reminded of the weekend I spent sitting at the table until I finished my plate. Yes, I slept there, but after 2 days, my family gave up and I was left unsoiled by that monstrosity of a meal. I was afraid to try Chinese food for years after that. When I finally had real Chinese food, it was a revelation. I still tremble when I think of those slimy chunks of celery in that vomit sauce. Blech!

edit- Sorry, I tried to quote another poster, didn't work out so well.

Edited June 1, 2008 by s_hustava (log)

[CaliPoutine]

Wooo, Randi!!!   Were you invited to the home of one of the older people you cook for?   Sounds like the taste expressed by a lot of them.

←

Actually, No. That food would probably be a lot better that what these people served us. The best part was the chocolate strawberry trifle I brought for dessert.

eta: We rarely get invited to other people's homes for dinner. Most people around here are pretty intimidated cooking for me. I really, really tried to enjoy the meal( my spouse tried too, but she is so spoiled by my cooking now), but I'd never willingly consume jarred alfredo sauce. I also despise bagged salad. I would never say anything about the meal to the host, but when I noticed the expiration date on the parm I did say " Are you trying to kill us". We all had a good laugh about it.

Edited June 1, 2008 by CaliPoutine (log)

[chellie]

With a trip back home on the horizon for my baby sister's wedding, the other day my mom reminded me of the worst meal I encountered at someone's house. Bless my mom, it was her house and her doing.

My family is very Midwestern - lots of meat 'n' potatoes, lots of casserole, lots of "cream of" soups, and nothing overly seasoned or particularly exotic. Oh yes, we had the La Choy stir frys growing up, which was the height of exotic food, and I have very fond memories of helping my dear Gram grind up baloney for the "ham salad" mentioned many pages back. Come to think of it, I'd eat the hell out of some of that ham salad, but only if Gram grinds up the baloney in her old Sunbeam MixMaster. Sadly the MixMaster is long gone, but Gram is still going strong.

Anyways, I wound up being the only member of my family with wanderlust, and I decided to leave the Midwest shortly after my 21st birthday to see more of the country. My random pogoing every couple years from state to state exposed me to all sorts of new and exotic cuisines. I was never picky to begin with, and I dived into all these new foods with wild abandon, trying everything edible I could get my hands on.

Nearly ten years after leaving the homeland, with a much-varied palate and a love of what my family kindly refers to as "weird food," I made my yearly Thanksgiving trip back home with a guest. My now-husband and I had been dating for several months, he had proposed, and he was very eager to meet the family I spoke so fondly of. In turn, my family was looking forward to meeting him and my mom planned for weeks in advance of our visit.

She did confess in those weeks leading up to the trip that she was petrified to cook for us. "For God's sake, Chellie, he's a Chef ! I don't know how to make anything fancy! What the hell am I supposed to cook for him? He'll think I'm some sort of idiot!!" I reassured her over and over that, Chef or not, Hubby's tastes are very simple. He's happy with meatloaf & mashed potatoes or a nice pasta.

Her panic continued, though, and she bought up issues of Gourmet and Bon Appetit to look for "suitable" recipes to prepare for us. She pored over cookbooks and searched the internet, seeking foods that she felt a Chef would find worthy. Finally she settled on a few recipes and awaited our arrival.

After a long drive lasting all day, we arrived at Mom's house shortly before dinnertime. We were famished, and we could smell tomato sauce simmering. Yum!! After unloading the car and taking a brisk walk to stretch our legs, we sat down at the table with Mom, my nephew and my niece. Nervously, Mom unveiled dinner. "It's penne with vodka sauce!" she proclaimed, half proud and half self-conscious. It looked and smelled quite good.

Hubby and I loaded our plates with pasta, salad, and bread. Mom, as usual, had cooked as through 20 people were coming for dinner.

It wasn't until the 2nd bite or so that we realized something was amiss. A glance at my mom's crestfallen expression told me she knew it too. The pasta tasted like we were doing shots of tomato flavored vodka - not in a good way. It was bitter and medicinal. It was painful. The sauce hadn't been simmered nearly enough to cook off the raw alcohol taste, and (as it turns out) her recipe called for an ungodly amount of vodka

Obviously embarrassed, Mom started apologizing and made to clear the plates away. Hubby quickly tried to reassure her that it wasn't bad at all and that he wanted to finish his plate, but after a few more bites she made us give up. We ate our salad and bread while Mom quickly heated up the casserole she'd made ahead for the next night's dinner.

The casserole was delicious and we ate heartily, though making sure to save room for dessert. Mom had made a Bundt cake, and a fancy one with almonds and cream at that! She'd tried this recipe earlier so she was ready to salvage what she thought was her damaged culinary reputation with Hubby.

I thought she would cry when she turned it out of the pan to serve and found the cake stuck firmly to the not-so-nonstick surface.

We helped her salvage the innards of the cake in manageable chunky slices and, some hours after our arrival, finished the meal she'd been so nervous about preparing.

Her confidence was restored the next morning when Hubby had three helpings of breakfast casserole (and asked her for the recipe!) and when, come Thanksgiving Day, I burnt the bread pudding.

[racheld]

Thanksgiving Day, I burnt the bread pudding.

←

SMARRRRT Girl!!! You did that on purpose, of course. Good save.

[MarketStEl]

Wow, what I've been missing by skipping this thread all these years!

Unfortunately for me, the only memorably bad meals I've had weren't really bad either -- the food tasted good and was at least competently prepared. But they were in restaurants, and I don't get sick eating food as a matter of course, and these two meals made me spectacularly sick -- well, one of them not spectacularly, but it was sushi, and I was on the verge of heaving right after devouring the last piece.

Neither of these experiences really qualify for this topic. I seem to have been blessed with friends and family who can cook and rarely make mistakes. My own disasters, I'm afraid, don't hold a candle to any of these here.

[chellie]

SMARRRRT Girl!!!  You did that on purpose, of course.  Good save.

←

My sister had made apple pie and, worried there wouldn't be enough dessert, Grandma made a coffee cake and Mom a cheesecake.

Of course I sacrificed the bread pudding!

[stuartlikesstrudel]

The only thing I can really think of wasn't a terrible meal, but it was kind of amusing.

I was up at a friend's farm for a few days and we were invited to my friend's grandparents' house for dinner one night. My friend mentioned that afternoon that I was vegetarian and confirmed with them on the phone that I didn't eat chicken, or fish.

So we turn up and I'm greeted at the door by the grandma saying "I had to think of something else to cook for you, we are having a bake with sausage in it but i've made you a separate one. Eggs are ok, aren't they?"

Yes, i replied, eggs and cheese are fine.

"Oh good", she says... "and what about ham".

Slight smile from me, "well, slightly less fine" but in a good humored way, and I went ahead and ate the ham bake. I found it slightly amusing that these grandparent, living on a FARM that has PIGS, didn't quite click that ham was a meat!!

[Beth Wilson]

I love this thread! I have to add my little memory of one of the many meals my sisters and I subjected my poor Dad to as we grew up and were learning to cook.

One meal sticks out the most, a lazy lasagna dish where the noodles were cut up and mixed with some tomato sauce, cheese and I seem to recall vegetables. My older sister had made the dish all by herself and would not allow any of us in the kitchen to help.

It tasted ok but had these unidentified soft white lumpy things in it (not the pasta), but since it was her first attempt at serving the whole family we all quietly ate it. No one had the heart to discourage her from trying again but after dinner we sneaked a peak at the recipe to figure out what those white lumpy things were.

The recipe called for 2 tbsp of flour and she misread the recipe and had put in 2 cups of flour. We couldn't help it and kinda had a laugh at her expense but she took it well and has become a great cook after all.

Now that we are adults she has been recently diagnosed as dyslexic and we reminisced about how all of these mistakes make sense now! But we still laughed again! They were some pretty big gooey white lumps!!!!

[Hard H2O]

This thread is a great read. I do not have any horror stories to share. I am not unhappy about that.

Like a few I do not have any meals that I have eaten in another's home that I would characterize as bad. I will forgive many "from a box" meals. I am thankful that friends who can't cook have turned to catering or potluck as the answer.

What amazes me is that I assume that these people are putting out their best effort for their guests. I know I do when I entertain. If these are their best effort than what do they eat regularly when cooking for themselves? I know a lot have said that the host eats many meals out but I still wonder.

My wife and I would joke that my mother was Mrs. Flax. Everything was appetizers. Most stuff sat out too long or sat in the oven or on the stove "keeping warm". We spent a few holiday evenings in search of someplace to get a real meal.

I witnessed my nieces making the mashed potatoes one Christmas Eve. They tasted with their fingers, mashed and stirred and then retasted. I warned the wife to stay away from the potatoes and we kept them off our kids plates.

I dreaded the meals when I knew my brother's kids would be around. I knew things would be tasted, fingered, molested... My brother is a trained chef. You would think his sanitation and methods would be better. I am sure his kids learned their kitchen habits from him and his ex.

I have my mother to thank for ensuring that I wouldn't be picky and that I would try new things. I have probably forgotten a lot of what went on in her kitchen. A lot of the weird concoctions were probably the result something similar to what was posted about the week before payday being tight. In retrospect, being an adult, I can see why she served the food she did.

[Lior]

My husband took me out for dinner to a restaurant recommended by foodies here. He was negligent. It was my birthday!! Not only am I a vegetarian from age 12, but as of late have discovered I don't tolerate gluten well, and I have a fish allergy. It is just awful because I always feel embarrassed. So we sit down at a lovely romantic table. We get the menu. Meat, fish and pasta. A lettuce salad. The scenario:

Me: "Do you have anything that is not meat?"

Hubby: "She doesn't eat meat"

Waitress: "Oh that is no problem, we have fresh fish!"

Hubby: " Uh, she's allergic to fish-fatal..."

Waitress: "Oh I see, well we do have all sorts of pasta dishes!"

Hubby: " Uhm, she can't eat flour..."

Waitress: " Well we do have a lettuce salad..."

I felt ashamed and gave my husband "the eye"- my special "angry" sign! Usually I find interesting dishes but this was a bummer. And it was my birthday!!!

[muichoi]

Maybe you should try to eat meat again given your fish and flour problem.

[Lior]

I know you are right,but I just can't get myself to do it after so many years... I convinced myself to eat fish, being a bit easy to deal with compared to meat and thus discovered my allergy. I never make myself a burden- always bring great delicious dishes with me when over at a friends or family's for dinner. Most people who aren't close to me don't even know. But theoretically you are 100% correct!! Maybe someday...

Thanks for the advice anyhow!

[cakewalk]

My husband took me out for dinner to a restaurant recommended by foodies here. He was negligent. It was my birthday!!  Not only am I a vegetarian from age 12, but as of late have discovered I don't tolerate gluten well, and I have a fish allergy. It is just awful because I always feel embarrassed. So we sit down at a lovely romantic table. We get the menu. Meat, fish and pasta. A lettuce salad. The scenario:

Me: "Do you have anything that is not meat?"

Hubby: "She doesn't eat meat"

Waitress: "Oh that is no problem, we have fresh fish!"

Hubby: " Uh, she's allergic to fish-fatal..."

Waitress: "Oh I see, well we do have all sorts of pasta dishes!"

Hubby: " Uhm, she can't eat flour..."

Waitress: " Well we do have a lettuce salad..."

I felt ashamed and gave my husband "the eye"- my special "angry" sign! Usually I find interesting dishes but this was a bummer. And it was my birthday!!!

←

Nothing to be ashamed about.

(Happy Birthday!)

[Harrison]

Whelks are little cone-shaped univalves. After sixteen pages of Google image search, I haven't spotted the right type of shell, but this is the closest (and it's not very close) :

http://www.dkimages.com/discover/DKIMAGES/...og-Whelk-1.html

The whelks I'm thinking of produce a shell that is proportioned more like the Great Pyramid, and the spiral is a lot tighter.

My father used to take the family down to the Bahamas for Christmas every year. We stayed on one of the "out islands" (nowadays, it's a major resort) with some people who had put together a few rental apartments for vacationers. One year, the landlord convinced my father that "whelk stew" was a local delicacy.

Indeed, having read about it a few times since, I'm sure that sometimes it was.

However, when he and my father went out and gathered a few hundred whelks, ripped them untimely from their shells, and made the stew, it smelled largely of iodine. And it tasted solely of iodine. Couldn't taste anything else over the iodine. Nothing. And as far as the textures go, it was not-watery-enough iodine broth with chunks of tough rubber whelkmeat in it.

My father claims to have enjoyed it. I still don't understand how.

[Lilija]

Good first post!

I've had some local delicacies from the Caribbean, and...well, that whelk stew doesn't sound too far from accurate.

[Jaymes]

One meal sticks out the most, a lazy lasagna dish where the noodles were cut up and mixed with some tomato sauce, cheese and I seem to recall vegetables.  My older sister had made the dish all by herself and would not allow any of us in the kitchen to help. 

It tasted ok but had these unidentified soft white lumpy things in it (not the pasta), but since it was her first attempt at serving the whole family we all quietly ate it.  No one had the heart to discourage her from trying again but after dinner we sneaked a peak at the recipe to figure out what those white lumpy things were.

The recipe called for 2 tbsp of flour and she misread the recipe and had put in 2 cups of flour. 

So many funny stories in this thread, but I love the thought of lasagne made with 2 cups of flour. And hapless guests encountering big "white lumpy things" and trying to guess what on earth they could possibly be without letting on to anyone else at the table.

Thanks.

[Brigit Binns]

How did I miss this thread? What a fabulous way to avoid working!

It's hard enough to get anyone to invite me for dinner as it is (just because I've written 19 cookbooks, people seem to get intimidated), but I'll risk a little diplomatic sharing.

Of the many indifferent meals consumed in England during my 7-year internment, the very first ranks high:

Everything on the plate was white: Poached chicken with white sauce, cauliflower cheese, and onions in cream. All proudly served by a girlfriend eager to share the best her native island had to offer.

Instead of running back across the pond in abject fear, like an idiot I married an Englishman. He sent me to professional cooking school, where I learned to make suet crust for steak and kidney pudding, babas au rhum, and poulet chaud-froid (more gelatin than a 1950's pot-luck party).

Many, many mealtimes were spent dispiritedly chewing overcooked pork in florid parlors.

Food made with love always has something to offer, but when made in honest ignorance it can be hard to figure out what that something is. I do always try.

My Guilty-Pleasure Web Page

[BigDan]

I've seen quite a few food horrors here in college. Alcohol, no cooking skills, and a lack of money account for most of them. The worst one I can remember though was just pure mean, but I did bring it upon myself in 2006.

Being from Seattle I made a bet with my friend from Chicago come playoff time. I bet him that the Seahawks would make it to the Superbowl and he bet the Bears would. Of course the stakes were that the loser had to cook the winner dinner, about as serious as we get around here. Of course the Seahawks go so I do what anyone in my situation would. I rubbed it in his face. A lot (this is football after all it's meant to be that way).

Dinner time comes of course and while I am not expecting anything fancy what I actually receive is a frozen chicken breast (from one of those huge generic super market bags) grilled with no seasonings on a George Foreman. He then simply dumped a can of generic super market mushroom soup on it and gave it to me.

The Seahawks losing in the Superbowl just made it all the worse.

Oh and as I mentioned in another thread already I once had the unique pleasure on a camping trip of having Spam that was roasted over a cow pie fire. Not exactly one in someone's house but it was my Uncle's idea.

Edited November 24, 2008 by BigDan (log)

[jfrater]

The worst meal I have ever had dining out was a meal of crabcakes that a friend made. She is normally a proficient cook but that day she was drunk far earlier than normal and her tastebuds seemed to have failed her. The crab was right on the verge of being "off" and she put far too much salt in it. And by too much, I don't mean enough to make you grimace - I mean enough to make you vomit - which it did - all night long. I was fine the next day which is why I am sure it was the salt and not the crab.

As for the worst thing I have done - it was (alas!) recently: I wanted to duplicate the stunning oysters and passionfruit that Heston serves at the Fat Duck. The first problem was that I couldn't get oysters (out of season) so I substituted prawns. The second problem: the passionfruit sauce was disgustingly sour. The third problem: I forgot to remove the "vein" and my guests had to manually do so at the table. They did it with grace but I was red all night - though half of that was no doubt the bottles of wine I consumed to console myself!

[gingerbeer]

I have a few...

- As a child I once went to the house of a classmate (whose parents were very wealthy). Her mother made us sandwiches for lunch. They contained: corn chips, an insane amount ketchup, cheese and raisins. I wanted to die.

- A few years ago I had a study partner who made me dinner. I watched her make it in horror. She took chicken breasts and grilled them in a pan with NOTHING - no salt, no seasoning, NOTHING. She didn't even wash them and they were defrosted so they had that scummy chicken water on them. She then made couscous, and poured about two cups of balsamic vinegar onto it. Then she put it all in a big bowl and mixed it up. She told me this was her favourite meal.

- At the house of another classmate, I was fed the most gag-inducing chicken curry ever. You know how mice smell? That's how the chicken smelled. Because I'm Brown, the mother called me into the kitchen while she was cooking and asked me how my mum made chicken curry. I replied that she used spices like cumin, turmeric, chili, ground coriander, etc. This woman then proceeded to say, 'No curry powder??' dumping in half a tin of it, along with the rancid chicken, unpeeled sliced apples, and cream cheese.

- A friend once made me spaghetti bolognese and for some reason my serving had a whole prawn in it. I was like '??' and he replied that one must have 'fallen' in. He ate his with hummus.

- My parents went to a dinner where the host served platters of sandwiches that were leftover from a work lunchtime function.

- A dessert consisting of pop-tarts with whipped cream on top.

- Finally, potato salad that had still-frozen potatoes in it, and a nice garnishing of frost.

[Lior]

awful!!!!!!

[cbread]

So does anyone here have the answer ... Why, why, WHY do these people do it? Are their tastebuds so off that they can't taste how gagtastic their "cooking" is? Reading some of the concoctions on this thread have actually caused me to have waves of nausea just thinking about the taste, smell and texture of some of these dishes. Surely these folks have had a decent food in restaurants and the homes of others, so again I must ask why? I just don't get it.

←

I have sort of a theory. It'll take a few words to tease it out so bear with me.

Wait. Maybe an introduction is in order as I'm new here:

I don't know if I'm a foodie. Probably not. I'll confess a few items I just don't want to eat - most fish, most of the time (an odor thing - yes even really fresh fish), and "variety meats" ever (simply too hard to contemplate - I can't explain better).

Whatever. I love most good food and can bake a darn good yeasted sourdough bread so I'm not a total and complete loser. I love to cook most of the time and have gotten pretty good with a few things and quite tolerable with many. I'm still learning from watching the Food Network and gathering interesting cookbooks and sifting out information here and across the internet.

I'm an artist, a painter, by day, and show in galleries. I've noticed that there is a kind of parallel universe to the world of bad food. There's a world of people with no or little visual sense. I'm not really addressing the people who want to look only at "happy" pictures of lighthouses and seagulls. They are an easy target and not very interesting. More, I'm interested in some of the professionals in the art world who seem to have come adrift from the moorings of art as a possibly pleasurable visual experience. Much critical writing about art seems devoid of the simple pleasure of taking in a work. They veer into the textual and theoretic, and away from sheer experience. I don't want to be a bore with more than that hint on them. I just note that some people seem immune to the experiential.

But, to bring it back to food, and this is where the visual cripples intersect with the awful cooks, the terrifying vegetarian hosts and the food maulers; some people seem to be out of touch with the experiential act of tasting food or looking at art. It seems a similar deficit to me. Maybe these are people who eat merely to live.

I suspect the ranks of dieticians and healty food nutjobs, who prescribe deadly dull regimens of celery and low fat milk, are largely comprised of people who eat merely because they need to and have no sense that food and eating are something larger. Could it be their bretheren cook so badly simply because they are so out of touch with sensual experience that they just don't know how awful their food is? That's my bet.

What an amazing thread!

Hi everyone,

C

Edited December 19, 2008 by cbread (log)

[Lilija]

So does anyone here have the answer ... Why, why, WHY do these people do it? Are their tastebuds so off that they can't taste how gagtastic their "cooking" is? Reading some of the concoctions on this thread have actually caused me to have waves of nausea just thinking about the taste, smell and texture of some of these dishes. Surely these folks have had a decent food in restaurants and the homes of others, so again I must ask why? I just don't get it.

←

I have sort of a theory. It'll take a few words to tease it out so bear with me.

Wait. Maybe an introduction is in order as I'm new here:

I don't know if I'm a foodie. Probably not. I'll confess a few items I just don't want to eat - most fish, most of the time (an odor thing - yes even really fresh fish), and "variety meats" ever (simply too hard to contemplate - I can't explain better).

Whatever. I love most good food and can bake a darn good yeasted sourdough bread so I'm not a total and complete loser. I love to cook most of the time and have gotten pretty good with a few things and quite tolerable with many. I'm still learning from watching the Food Network and gathering interesting cookbooks and sifting out information here and across the internet.

I'm an artist, a painter, by day, and show in galleries. I've noticed that there is a kind of parallel universe to the world of bad food. There's a world of people with no or little visual sense. I'm not really addressing the people who want to look only at "happy" pictures of lighthouses and seagulls. They are an easy target and not very interesting. More, I'm interested in some of the professionals in the art world who seem to have come adrift from the moorings of art as a possibly pleasurable visual experience. Much critical writing about art seems devoid of the simple pleasure of taking in a work. They veer into the textual and theoretic, and away from sheer experience. I don't want to be a bore with more than that hint on them. I just note that some people seem immune to the experiential.

But, to bring it back to food, and this is where the visual cripples intersect with the awful cooks, the terrifying vegetarian hosts and the food maulers; some people seem to be out of touch with the experiential act of tasting food or looking at art. It seems a similar deficit to me. Maybe these are people who eat merely to live.

I suspect the ranks of dieticians and healty food nutjobs, who prescribe deadly dull regimens of celery and low fat milk, are largely comprised of people who eat merely because they need to and have no sense that food and eating are something larger. Could it be their bretheren cook so badly simply because they are so out of touch with sensual experience that they just don't know how awful their food is? That's my bet.

What an amazing thread!

Hi everyone,

C

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Pretty amazing insight, yourself, but you're right! My best friend/housemate is an artist, he's shown in galleries, and actively painting and selling his work...I'm a pretty passionate home cook, so we're constantly talking about the paralells, and art vs. craft. Sounds like you'd fit right in with our conversations, haha. I have to read him your view. It's a really good assessment.

It's a love thing. Love color and form, respect it, learn it, use it to it's fullest potential, observe it, bring it from nature into yourself, and present all this in your art. I'm not really an artist, though I can roundly appreciate it.

Now put the word flavor into that statement. Love flavors and food, respect them, use them to their fullest potential, observe flavors, bring them from nature into yourself, and present all this in your creations.

If you don't love it, respect it, revel in it, how can you do it any justice? Art and food (and many other things in life, really).

Artistboy says this: "There is nothing worse to both an artist and a cook, than the reaction of no reaction. The reaction of apathy. You hit it very well, with the "eat to live" thing. Apathy towards food."

Edited December 19, 2008 by Lilija (log)

[Tom Gengo]

I am frequently asked what inspired me to become a gourmet cook. Although my mother and uncle were inspirations with their cooking skillls, I have to credit my father. This does require some explanation... he is NOT a cook.

When I was a prepubescent child my mom worked 2nd shift as an RN at the local hopstal. Well that left the gastronomy to dear old dad. Well I would have been in heaven to eat one of those frozen meals, but dad his own idea of "good" food... diced Spam heated (tepidly at best) in Hormel chili. I gag at the thought of that meal and have to breath into a paper bag in the grocery store when I pass the Spam "selections."

To dad's cedit, he has evolved to cheeseburgers (multiple times per week) and anything that is shaped like a sausage. I think while I am home for Christmas I am going to grind some spam and hormel chili together, stuff it in some casings and give it to him for "old times sake." I am only afraid that he will eat it, yuck.