kitchen nightmares

We hosted the Young Friends(tm) for a post-holiday feast, as everyone had returned from their various dysfunctional family holiday Olympics.
Well, except Simon, who's happy, well adjusted family is a burden to us all.

I swung by the Italian market for the good pasta, picked up some wine and bread and made the wife's favorite red sauce. It's similar to the quick red sauce I've posted here, save simmering it a while to concentrate flavor then pureeing in a blender.

Ah, the blender.

Mine being packed away on an upper shelf, I opted for mom's old Oster. I keep meaning to donate it, and it kept sitting unmolested on the counter, waiting for its chance.


The blending seemingly went well and I left the sauce to rest while put the finishing touches on the rest of the meal.

The guests arrived just as the pasta finished and I switched on the broiler for the bread. The stars were aligning!

The adventure began with the impending union of sauce and pasta.

I grasped the handle of the blender and lifted it six inches before the bottom fell off and several quarts of sauce cascaded, lava-like, over the blender, down the counter and across the floor, applying a Jackson Pollock patina to my new khakis and lapping ever so gently over the toes of the new shoes I was breaking in.

The audience at the dinner table was thankfully restrained in their response, their affects somewhat flattened by flaring pangs of hunger.

Not satisfied with destroying the main course the blender dragged down the bread as well, which burned cheerfully while the emergency response team contained the sauce spill.

And this, dear readers, is why no self respecting kitchen should be without several heads of garlic and a big bottle of olive oil.

Pausing only a moment to regret my personal animus toward garlic presses (this was one situation where speed and convenience would have trumped my love of chopping), I grabbed my knife and went at two heads of garlic like a man possessed, or perhaps a man living in fear of the potential lynch mob of starving souls in the dining room.

Simmer the garlic in olive oil over low heat for 5 minutes or so, until golden brown, toss with pasta, salt to taste, top with grated Parmesan and voila, BACKUP DINNER.

While the garlic cooked I performed field surgery on the charred loaf of bread, ruthlessly amputating blackened crust to reclaim the edible core.

Combine with a providentially immense salad and there you have it- dinner for six, the long way around.