For the love of God, step away from the stove…

When I was seven years old I became obsessed with the idea of becoming a Cordon Bleu trained chef. I didn’t just want my certification, I wanted to travel to France and study at the REAL Cordon Bleu school. I wanted it so much that I saved up all my money and bought a Berlitz language guide and would spend hours in my room practicing completely random French phrases like “What time does the bus leave for Lourdes?” and “How much to dry clean my overcoat?”. I learned the French name for pretty much every fruit and vegetable under the sun. I would converse with my dog for hours. He spent a lot of time looking tired and confused.

I threw a dinner party for my friends and made Chicken Vol-Au-Vent and sautéed broccoli with lemon and Parmesan cheese. My friends ate it and even liked it. (Not that they didn’t think I was the weirdest seven year old on the planet…)

Every once in a while I would be lucky enough to travel to Saltspring Island to visit my mom’s best friend who ran the kitchen at the Vesuvius Inn. She would put me to work prepping French fries in the crazy potato slicer/press or have me scrub grease traps or floors or peel carrots. Some would call it a child labour violation; I called it heaven. I wanted to drop out of school and work in a kitchen right then and there. My dad said you needed a high school diploma to go to the Cordon Bleu. Good one, Dad.

As I got older, I became an opera singer and discovered the electric guitar. (Dangerous business, if you ask me.) When I graduated from high school, I worked in a few different kitchens, and even traveled to France, but I never got my Cordon Bleu cert. I ended up studying music, not cooking. I still have a huge passion though, and I try to hone my skills constantly. And for the most part, I’m a pretty damn good cook. I can throw together a rack of lamb or chicken tikka or oeufs en meurette without even stressing out that much.

Which leads me to my morning of chaos and my very embarrassing admission. I can cook a whole lot of things. You can chuck me a recipe and I can practically guarantee that it will turn out as good as it’s supposed to be or better. (I can never stick to a recipe word for word; it’s why I’m such a shitty baker. I get bored easily.) But in spite of my abilities with the complex nuances of food, I would get fired on the spot after one shift cooking breakfast. Try as I might, I can’t for the life of me cook hash browns from scratch or make pancakes.

Now hear me when I say this, I don’t mean I don’t think my hash browns or pancakes measure up to what they should be. What I mean is you don’t want to even consider eating the hash browns or pancakes that I make. If they came to you on a plate at a restaurant, you would complain, cry or barf. There would be no exception. I really don’t know what it is. I try and try and no matter what I do I cannot succeed. It’s like the math block that I have in my head. I can understand complex math theory, but I can’t add or subtract on the spot and I have a panic attack if you ask me about multiplication tables. It’s like when you pull the elephant’s trunk the light is supposed to come on…

So yeah, in spite of knowing this about myself, I thought I’d give it another try this morning. I usually fake hash browns by roasting potatoes instead, but no, I thought, “Today will be different!” “I can do this!”

I should have listened to the universe when I managed to spray half a pound of coffee grounds all over my kitchen that the gods were not with me today. Not even the gods that are usually with me. (Et tu, coffee gods?!) In between fighting with the dog to convince her that large mouthfuls of coffee are not food, my cell phone rang and I tried to sweep up the catastrophe, my already suspiciously awful looking hash browns smoking away on the stove, burning to a crisp. I managed to pull them off the heat while juggling a broom, phone and small caffeinated dog. To add insult to injury, I couldn’t even fry an egg to cover my potato embarrassment. I burned that to a crisp as well.

Note to self: Never make hash browns again. Ever.