My kids like to torture me with a woman named Dr. Jean. Have you heard of her? If you have, I am sorry. Bleeding eardrums. One of her hot songs has a line called, “my mother is a baker a baker a baker.”
I am not a baker. Ironically, when I was searching for this video clip, my mother is a serial killer was google’s helpful suggestion. If I had to listen to Dr. Jean, this would be true for my children.
At one point I was trapped in a cabin with my children as they played me all of these Dr. Jean songs, the worst of which was about peeling a banana.
I encourage you to browse the body of her work. If you like to inflict pain upon yourself. I was fortunate enough to have been born in the 1970’s and though the clothing choices were pretty much corduroy or corduroy, we never had to listen to such hits as “Tooty Ta, Going on a Bear Hunt, the Rules of the Classroom, Today is Sunday.” I consider her the musical equivalent of looking at Caillou. Or listening to Caillou. When I type Caillou, my Google overlords tell me it is not spelled correctly, suggesting callous instead. You would have to be callous to insert an audio clip of Caillou so I won’t inflict it upon you. His voice sends shivers down my spine.
Funny story, when my son was 2 we moved from New England to Virginia, at the time he loved this bald headed annoying moppet. When we moved I told him we were now too far from Canada to get Caillou on the television. This was a lie of course and one I am not ashamed of. I did feel a little bad when my son found Caillou many years later on Netflix and said something about how amazing technology was to allow us to view Canadian television in Virginia.
Back to my point, I am not a baker. I enjoy cooking sometimes, I get creative when I need to. I like to think of my life as one big mystery basket from Chopped, give me the ingredients, and I will whip something up. I like to be creative, baking is not very forgiving to us creative types. I recklessly substitute ingredients, adjust oven temperatures to better suit my moods. Recipes are mere jumping off points for me. Jumping headlong into the fire is more accurate. I hate to use more than one bowl for anything. Yet all of these recipes ask for wet ingredients in one bowl, dry ingredients in another, semi-gloss and matte over here etc. I don’t have that kind of patience. I understand that there is a chemical reaction that I am prolonging or truncating, but I don’t care. I am focused on efficiency and all of those bowls hurt me at my core.
Behold the simple cornbread. Or is it? One of my many baking shortcomings is that I don’t actually print or keep recipes, I always think I will remember which one of the 20,000 online recipes I used. I don’t and there are definite winners and losers out there. Especially when you don’t actually have the ingredients on hand.
My son, who is my technical support since I did not know until today that I two finger tap to spell check or select an image (Learning New Tricks!) said to me, “this recipe looks really easy, how could you mess this up? ” He then added, with the knowledge of hindsight, “I don’t see vinegar listed as an ingredient here.” Which is true and pretty much the beginning and end of my problem.
I know people say you can substitute buttermilk for whole milk curdled by the addition of white vinegar. I have done so somewhat successfully in the past. As I measured out my 1 cup of milk, carefully reading the bottom of the meniscus, I was about 1/4 to 1/5 a cup shy of 1 cup, no problem, I will make up the volume with my added vinegar! Quelle Brilliance! I was too lazy to open the unopened gallon in the fridge leading me later to repeat the “Old Greek Saying” that “he who does not have brains must have legs.”
Upon removing the very dense bread from the oven, straining a bicep. I was overpowered by the smell of vinegar. I tasted a tiny corner and headed straight to the trash to spit it out. My husband, who is kind and will eat anything, said it wasn’t bad once it cooled. I didn’t bother tasting it again, calling it dense would be an insult to lead.
Later that week, I made breaded chicken tenders. I have cooked these many times and usually use a think layer of olive oil in the pan. Trying to be thrifty, I had reserved the oil from making Loukomades (Greek Doughboys) for our non-traditional Greek Easter celebration. I am not sure on the exact chemistry here but there must have been sugar residue in the oil…Overly blackened chicken anyone?
Which bring me to the pièce de résistance! My meringues! I had leftover egg whites and not nearly enough time to actually dry them appropriately but gobs of ambition. Everything was great until I decided that 2 hours in the oven was plenty and took them out. Never trust a baker who learns everything she knows from the interwebs, she probably diagnosis her own foot conditions too. They were sticky but still tasty and the kids and I enjoyed them. There were a few left over so I stuck them in a ziploc baggie. The next morning, this is what I saw
My poor, deflated Meringues, you deserved so much more.
I think the oven and I need to see other people.
