My mother calls it “an adventure in eating.” Last Tuesday was my son’s Boy Scout troop’s International Dinner. The Scouts each prepared a dish from a country around the world, including Italy, Japan, Greece, and others. He and his small group have been studying food, culture, history, and more of Greece. He’ll be preparing a dish called pastitsio, a Greek lasagna.
Sadly, my son was sick the day of the event. We didn’t make the meal and we didn’t attend the event to try the other dishes presented. The next day, I decided to try to make the dish on my own. It’s complicated! From making fresh meat sauce with a number of ingredients and making bechamel sauce (which I’d never made before) to the sheer time it took to put it together, I was tired by mealtime. But I had decided I wasn’t going to waste all the fresh herbs and veggies I’d bought specifically to make this dish.
That’s when it happened. I absently took the dish – which I’d made in one of my favorite 9″ x 13″ glass baking pans – and set it on a burner that had been warming up for a side dish. First I heard what sounded like boiling water and sizzling food. Then a high-pitched squeal like a tea kettle coming to a boil. Then a loud pop as the glass exploded all over the kitchen!
I ricocheted in every direction imaginable. I was walking back into the kitchen so I was nowhere near it when it exploded, but I jumped back with how far the larger shards of glass flew. There was glass on the floor, there was glass on the counters, there was glass in the crock pot and on the dishes next to the stove. It was a mess. My husband even got a nasty cut on the top of one of his fingers trying to pick up some of it. About two hours and a run to the store for liquid bandage and regular bandages, there was no adventure in eating.
Tell me about a time when you first tried a new dish. What was it? Did you make it yourself – if you did, did it turn out better than this? Is it a part of your regular diet now?