It wasn't going to be a big deal. Salad and grilled chicken. I've made salad. I can grill chicken. I'm not entirely incompetent.
So I get the salad ready. Tear up the lettuce, shred some carrot, slice a little bit of onion, toss it in a bowl. Already I could tell this salad was going to taste flat. I didn't have anything else I could add to it, though. Oh well, that's what dressings are for, right?
I threw in a dash of seasoning, just to be safe. Regretting that decision almost immediately, I put plastic wrap over the bowl and shoved it in the fridge.
Next, the chicken.
I took three large (honking huge kind of large) chicken breasts out of the freezer and set them in the microwave to defrost. I started pacing the kitchen. I was nervous.
Yes. Nervous. About grilling chicken. Please don't mock me, this is a sensitive and delicate situation.
While they were defrosting I had a thought: Chicken and salad might not be enough. Maybe we need something else...something that goes with chicken...what do we usually eat with chicken?...Mashed Potatoes!!
So I washed a bowl and got the potatoes ready. Instant mashed potatoes, how hard could it be?
Chicken finally finished defrosting. I brought them out, covered them in tasty seasonings and flavors, and then threw them into the pan. They immediately started hissing angrily (and loudly) at me.
I don't react well to negative energy, especially when it's directed at me, usually from people. It makes me tense and uncomfortable. Apparently I react the same way from (imagined) negative energy directed at me from uncooked poultry. I know it sounds stupid, and a little crazy, but I really felt like the chicken was hissing at me for being an incompetent cook, which reinforced my feelings that I do not belong in the kitchen. The hissing just kept getting louder and my feelings of inferiority increased, as did my frustration with the potatoes.
Let's talk about those potatoes.
Directions called for two cups of boiling water and one cup of potato pellets (are they "pellets"? or granules or something...i'm sure there's a word for it). But who needs directions, right? We'll just use straight hot water from the tap. It actually starts steaming, that's how hot it gets. I'm sure it'll work just as well.
- "Steaming" is NOT "boiling." Make a note of it.
I poured in the water, I poured in the pellets/granules/obnoxious potato bits, and started stirring like a mad woman. About the time the muscles in my forearm started cramping up from whisking so quickly, I realized that the potatoes weren't dissolving. The water wasn't hot enough.
Crap.
I should have started over. I should have scrapped the first attempt, actually taken the time to boil water and it would have been fine. So of course, that is not what I did.
I threw the bowl into the microwave in hopes that if I made it hotter then...then I don't know what I thought would happen. Looking back on it, my thought processes made no sense. The chemical reaction between granules/pearls/pellets and the water had already taken place, and heat was not going to further that reaction at all.
*looks at floor and shakes head side to side in pitiable and miserable manner*
Well that's what I did anyway. And when it was hotter I added more pearly potato pellets into the bowl and mixed again and then...can you guess?...nothing happened.
Well, no. Not nothing. It actually got worse. It was too dry to mix properly so I added a little (a tiny bit!) more water, which turned it into soupy nastiness, so I added more pel--*sigh* you can see where this is going.
I'm like a freaking ten year old.
Angry hissing kept getting louder in the midst of all this.
I finally scrapped all of it. (waste! i hate to waste! especially food! bad, evil, boo, hisssss!!) I washed the sauce pan and boiled the water. This time the mashed potatoes turned out too thin...not thick and fluffy, like they should be. But I WASN'T going to try to fix it; we all know what happens when I try to go down that road. So I left 'em alone.
Stupid chicken kept hissing at me. The outside of the poultry was looking deliciously golden-brown, but the inside was still pink-ish. Drat. So I turned up the heat, which inadvertently increased the hateful hissing, which caused my soul to shrivel a little bit. I wanted to flee the confines of my stupid, nasty, tiny kitchen, but I forced myself to stay.
Eventually the chicken was thoroughly cooked. I took them off the pan and the hissing stopped, which immediately restored (some of) my confidence. Apparently the chicken had been making me more insecure than I realized, because as soon as the hissing stopped I was able to straighten my shoulders and stand taller.Yes, I unconsciously slouched in the face of hissing poultry. I'm pathetic. Pity me.
I had plans to wipe down counters and do a load of dishes as soon as the chicken was done. But after everything was ready for dinner, I had no desire to stand on the linoleum any longer. I actually cringed at the sight of the washcloth.
My kitchen is nasty, and I want to clean it, but I couldn't stand being in there even a minute more.
The guests that I had suffered extreme psychological and emotional abuse for ended up canceling last minute. They texted me saying, and I quote:
"Can't make it tonight.
Sorry.
:/"
Would've been great to know that BEFORE going through this huge ordeal. Thanks a lot.
I'll just cry at night.
No big deal.
P.S. I actually went and looked, they're called "potato gems"
Pellets. Gems. I was close.
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