2523. Cooking class

Margaret was an excellent cook, and so should she be as she was the cooking teacher at the local high school. She had just been employed and was excited to begin. Cooking had been introduced into the curriculum for both boys and girls because these days with both parents working it was easier to leave cooking lessons up to a teacher. After all, it was a school!

The school wasn’t riddled with multitudinous ovens, so cooking classes were restricted to fourteen pupils at one time using the ovens and the rest of the class creating a cold salad or dessert.

On the first class Margaret ran into trouble. There were fourteen boys and twelve girls. She decided to run a little competition: boys versus girls. The boys at first were given the task of making a cold salad. The girls were to make cookies of their choice from a pile of recipes. All went well.

“When you’re ready for the oven,” said Margaret, “don’t forget to set the timer. It will take about thirty minutes. When you are done, it’s the boys’ turn.

Pandemonium erupted after thirty minutes. The timer alarms all went off at different times. No one knew whose alarm was whose. Some girls’ cookies hadn’t cooked; other girls’ cookies were burnt.

Then it was the boys turn. Everything came out perfectly. Their cookies were perfection itself. The boys won the day!

Wesley was pleased with his new-learned skill; he could adjust girls’ timers and oven temperatures without anyone noticing.

2500. Hither and yon

Although I enjoy cooking, and relish even more the eating, I have never been much good at it. I think I’m too impatient. Why measure out half a teaspoon of salt when you can just grab a pinch between thumb and forefinger?

There are also some recipes that one doesn’t need to look up, as the frequency of their creating has impinged the formula clearly on the brain. Such in my case is the recipe for muffins. And here lies the rub…

I think I will bake a cake, but first I’d better make some muffins. Oh dear! There’s now no time to bake a cake and the oven is being used for muffins.

I think I will make Dijon Kidneys with rice for dinner, but first I shall bake some muffins. Oh dear! There’s now no time to make something different for dinner, I will simply reheat something from the freezer.

I think I will make a delicious dessert. The photograph on the food page of the morning paper looks spectacular. Oh dear! I’m out of blueberries. I used them in the muffins.

Perhaps today I will try to make some rye bread for a change. Oh dear! There isn’t time. I spent the time in making muffins.

And so, dear Reader, having reached Flash Fiction Number 2500 I am going to try and make time to cook some different things. Now and again I might resort to making a muffin or two, but for the time being I want to try some different things.

Here then is the last batch of muffins. Don’t argue over them. Enjoy with my thanks for the company, and no doubt we will bump into each other

hither and yon

here and there

out and about

far and wide

back and forth

this way and that

1510: Savoury Muffins

Review 1: This muffin recipe is not my favourite. I made the muffins because the recipe was given five stars out of five. I left the sugar out because quite frankly there is no place for sugar in a savoury recipe. I usually detest garlic but I used it here because of the five stars. It destroyed any redeeming features the recipe might have had. I can still taste it. Yuk! I also omitted the mozzarella cheese. It’s not the type of thing the average household keeps in their fridge so naturally I couldn’t use it, but I replaced it with blue vein that was about to go off, so it was good to find a use for it. An elderly aunt had left the revolting stuff here when she visited last Christmas. All in all, a big disappointment.

Review 2: What a delightful recipe! I left out the flour because my son has an allergy. I also omitted the rosemary and the baking powder, but I added a well-beaten egg white to a packet of marsh mellows and baked it like a meringue. This muffin recipe is so light and airy.

Review 3: Your recipe called for two teaspoons of baking powder. I was out of baking powder at the time so I used baking soda instead and increased the amount to four tablespoons. Does the person who runs this recipe blog ever try the recipes before they are posted? This one would have failed the test. I might as well have had a fizzy drink. It’s pathetic. And to think the recipe has five stars.

Review 4: I began with your recipe, but this recipe website runs so many popup ads. I didn’t realize that another recipe altogether had “popped up” and I used that to make the things. Hubby loved them, although he did wonder why there were so many chicken bones in the muffins.

Review 5: Honestly, we should have been warned. My son came home from school and asked who had been vomiting. It was that Parmesan cheese in the muffins cooking in the oven. It flooded the house with its stench. The whole family refused to even take a nibble. I don’t blame them. The chickens loved them, although I noticed that one or two of them seem to have gone off the lay.

Review 6: Why are people so negative in their comments? When I was brought up my parents demanded respect and courtesy. These days anything goes. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see swearing used in some of the recipes these days. I had an uncle who swore like a trooper but he’s dead now. His wife, my aunt, has since remarried and lives in Anchorage. They have terrible winters in Alaska. I wouldn’t live there if you paid me, and nor would my daughter who is finishing off her degree at university.

1486. Cindy’s lemon cheesecake

Cindy’s lemon cheesecake was famous all over the county. Whenever there was to be a community function of note – the end of the school year, an established local leaving the area, a wedding or a wake – Cindy’s phone would ring: “Cindy, could you make your lemon cheesecake?”

Cindy was generous to a fault. Of course she would make it. But hadn’t she – so many times, so many numerous times – shared the recipe with almost everyone else in the county? Had they ever thought of making a lemon cheesecake themselves?

Yes they had. But even when they used Cindy’s recipe things never turned out as mouth-watering. Cindy knew it, but then she alone knew that she had shared another recipe and not the one with the magic touch.

1425. Research

Mrs Maisie Gilliver was a wonder. She was addicted to genealogy; not just hers, but everyone else’s as well. She had discovered that the more information she uploaded onto genealogical sites, the more free research time was allotted to her. She searched the internet and copied other’s family trees at will and then placed the information on other genealogical sites.

Mrs Maisie Gilliver was marvellously flexible, for example, Great Aunt Sylvia kept on having babies for a good decade after her death; three siblings were born within four months of one another; Uncle Harold played the church organ every Sunday for eleven years without missing a Sunday and in between Sundays he traversed the world in his sailing ship.

Mrs Maisie Gilliver thought she was being helpful. In fact, she completely stuffed up the chances of other researches finding useful and accurate information on the internet. It had been junked out.

Mrs Maisie Gilliver’s next project is to upload recipes…

And hints to stay healthy…

And history…

And science…

And…

856. The way it can be

Quite frankly Trevor was tired of cooking for one. Since his wife had passed on, about six months earlier, he had cooked for himself. It was always rather ordinary; maybe chops or sausages, with boiled or mashed potato, and a salad.

Today it was raining. He thought it was time to make an effort. Using one of his late wife’s recipe books, he selected something delectable, and made a list of ingredients. Some of the things were already in the house, such as beef stock, and onions. But he didn’t have any caraway seeds, for example.

Off he drove to the supermarket. He needed some bacon rashes. There were so many to choose from; there was middle bacon, and shoulder bacon, and streaky bacon, and bacon pieces. The middle bacon seemed to be the cheapest, and came in packets with fewer slices. He didn’t needed twenty slices of bacon. What would he do with them? So he settled on the middle bacon packet of six.

Then he needed one small turnip, but he couldn’t find turnips anywhere. He asked one of the shop workers if there were any turnips, and they said they would check out the back. They returned and said they were out of turnips, but one small rutabaga would do the trick. So he put a small swede in his trolley (because in his country swedes are what rutabagas are called!)

Trevor had quite a bother finding the caraway seeds, but eventually he realized that the spices were alphabetical, but according to brand. And the brand he was looking at didn’t have caraway seeds, but he found them under a different brand name on a different shelf.

He needed some pork sausages, which were simple enough to find, but the shop had got all creative and had packets of pork sausages with all sorts of flavours and spices and herbs. Trevor wanted simple pork sausages. He found them hidden down the bottom of the creative pork sausage stack.

All was complete for his recipe, but he got some apples as well. Trevor went through the checkout without having to wait in line for too long. Thank heavens for small mercies, he thought. Now to remember where he’d park his car!

In the car park he was hit by a car and killed.

To listen to the story being read click HERE!

702. Muses and Fates

Laurabella was a poet. She wrote a poem every day and posted it. Poems oozed out of her like pus from an infected scab. It oozed not just every day, but often all day every day. The verses would tumble out as fast as she could type. Up on Mt Olympus Polyhymnia remarked to Calliope that, as Laurabella’s Muse, she was absolutely exhausted trying to keep up.

Then suddenly, Laurabella stopped creating poetry. The Muses on Mt Olympus were relieved. At last they could have a rest.

These days it’s recipes. Recipes tumble out of Laurabella’s keyboard like slop in a pig’s trough. She can’t cook for nuts, and she hasn’t tested a single recipe, but her recipes pages have the biggest number of followers this side of the Yangze River.

But… oh! no!… What’s this? Laurabella is now posting her recipes in verse form. Her two creative urges rolled into one! She is becoming the Julia Child of the Poetry Anthologies. The Muses are unamused. They have phoned the three Fates. “And,” shouted Polyhymnia to Atropos, “bring your scissors to cut her thread of life!”

At once! shouted the Nine Muses. At once! shouted the Three Fates.

Listen the story being read HERE!

(Apologies for the mispronunciation of Atropos in the audio, but everyone in my household is still asleep and I don’t want to wake them by re-recording at this early morning hour!)