expectations vs reality

I got carried away on Bored Panda. Ended up spending way too much time there. But I ran across something that had me laughing so hard I couldn't stop, so I gave up, pushed the laptop away and just laughed until it was used up. This got me.

That's the cutest little bear ever. The white snout and ears are probably Philadelphia cream cheese, and the black marks are probably minute bits of olive. The blanket is egg whisked thoroughly. The copy didn't even try. 

There is an example of a cheese ball in the shape of a Christmas tree with olives pressed into it all around. Every type of olive available at the olive bar, to imitate bulb decorations. While the copy is all the same drab green olives from a jar. Or a tin. I don't care for olives myself, so I'm not the best judge, but I'm good enough to know there is no comparison in taste. The ones in jars and tins are anemic compared to the olives marketed carefully. I learned that by making olive penguins for Deena's party. I tasted a few out of a jar from the supermarket and compared them with a few from the olive bar at Whole Foods and although I don't like either one, the difference in quality exceeds 100%. They're probably twice as expensive but they're probably four or five times better. I could understand what they're supposed to be. 

The page says 25+ examples, but they mean 25 pages of examples, not 25 fails. The collection of food-fails goes on forever. The examples devolve into cake and cupcake fails and those are funny but less interesting. There is also a site for that, Cake Wrecks, but that site shows only professional fails, they don't make fun of individuals trying to do something artistic. While having no mercy on pros. 

I don't make cakes. Except this one birthday cake. And boy, was that ever good.

And Ina Garten's chocolate cheesecake.

And peach cupcakes in the shape of peaches (with an almond seed inside them). Those were a huge hit with the ladies and they asked me to make them again. But honestly, I just don't care for cake. 

Although I admit, yesterday I made a cheese soufflé in a jar. Whipped the egg whites in a glass jar then folded the béchamel thickened further with the four egg yolks into that along with two types of cheese. Then poured that into a small baking bowl. And that turned out great. And it got me thinking about doing the same thing except with a chocolate cake. I liked the idea of making an individual size. Such as they do with a tin can.

Another of the failures listed is Halloween cookie fingers, and as God is my witness, I invented those over twenty years ago. For work. And my first try was a failure as shown on the fail page. But I learned from that first batch from the oven to add flour to the remainder of my peanut butter dough to stiffen it up. They still tasted like peanut butter but weaker than the usual peanut butter cookie. I learned to shape the knuckles by pushing both ends of the cookie worms to form a bulge in the middle. Then tap the bulge four times with a dinner knife to create wrinkles in the knuckle bulge. I learned to form the fingernail by pressing down flat with a dinner knife on the edge to shape cuticle and a flat surface for an icing fingernail. Then use the same knife to place icing flavored with almond extract to harden and form a fingernail. And color the same icing with red to dip the opposite ends for bloody stumps and allow it to drip back over the finger. And reserve some of the white icing to place a white dot on top of the red at the end for a chopped bone. Then I went throughout the entire bank as I did everyday but this time leaving cookie fingers in people's desks along side their pens, on their desks, in their pen cups, on the paper cutters by the copier machines, under the lid that you lift on the copiers all over the bank. On all the desks of my favorite secretaries, in the mail room by the electric letter opener, By electric pencil sharpeners. Everywhere people would find them one-by-one, and when I started hearing shrieks here and there I knew my plan came to its fruition. Those peanut butter fingers were a gigantic hit that Halloween and eventually people figured out on their own that I was responsible. And they saved them. They saved their stupid fingers. I had to talk them into eating them by promising to replace them. People came to my desk asking if I have any extra peanut butter fingers. Then everyone who did eat one started nibbling the fingernail. As if biting their own fingernail. That unexpected behavior was hilarious. They were very convincing fingers. Nothing at all like the ones shown on the fail page. And that whole idea came about because someone told me to bring finger food. So I did. 

After fifty years of steaming rice, I'm only just now steaming it without rinsing first. In Tokyo our housekeeper taught me Japanese rice must be rinsed seven times. And to do that ritualistically and watch for the water to clear. So I followed her instructions for decades. Until two weeks ago. For sticky rice. I like it sticky. It's easier to eat with chopsticks. It can be colored brown like that for the bear with nearly anything. Like soy sauce. I think I could do this bear. But why? 

I made rice omelets before, and they're very good, but never in the shape of a bear. It never came up. 

These pretzels are just pathetic. This person isn't even trying. I made them before and they always came out very good, if a little too fat. This is where I learned to make mustard from powdered mustard. Originally I thought I had to have mustard seeds, and maybe that's best, but it's not necessary. I didn't know how much vinegar to use so I decided to use my own judgement, how much vinegar I wanted to go with that much powder, then continued adding water until the desired viscosity was reached.

You would not believe how fantastic this mustard is until you try it yourself. It's fierce the day that you make it and becomes less fierce as it is stored. Everyone who has tasted it agrees, it's the best mustard they've ever tasted. I used rice vinegar because that is my favorite but I imagine any vinegar will work just as well. Only three ingredients, mustard powder, vinegar, and water, boom, the best mustard you'll ever have. Since then, I buy multiple of mustard powder in tins. I buy it by the sack full from Whole Foods economy bins. There is simply no point in buying prepared mustard anymore. All the mustard manufacturers do the same thing. And they buy their mustard seeds from us. Even the French do. They do have their boutique mustard fields, but the United States and Canada supply most the world's mustard seeds. And all they do is add vinegar and water.   

I put a pile of pretzels in a bag into my backpack and took them into a nearby shop and announced "I have come bearing gifts." That got their attention. Opened the backpack and whipped out the pretzels. The young clerks are always starving. They snatched one each and bit into them. I was reaching into my backpack just as one of them said, "All we need now is mustard." Ta-daa. Right at that moment I produced mustard out of the backpack. It was brilliant magic right there from their point of view. Think it, and there it is, just like that. As bread, the pretzels were well received. Fat, poorly formed pretzels. With chunky sea salt glistening on them.

These chile pepper dogs below look pretty good. And you can see where the failures went wrong. The hotdogs have grill marks on them and the chiles do not. The whole point is to grill and blister the chiles while the hot dogs inside pre-stuffed with cheese warm up as the chiles blister on the grill. It's a very good idea that eliminates the useless foam-like white bread. Each hot dog takes two jalapeños with the membrane scrapped out. 

One time a friend said "The chile heat is in the seeds." Something he heard. He's an intellectual type who does not like being contradicted. So I go, "Let's test." I carefully separated a few seeds from the membrane even the tiny bit that connects it, and put a few seeds in my mouth. He did the same. They are inert. While the tiny thread that connects them has heat. And the membrane that contains them is loaded with heat. To calm them down and make these hotdogs bearable, then remove all of the membrane inside. And that's easier to do when both ends are trimmed this severely. Don't they look good?

The failures are pathetic. Come on. This one is really lame. This must have been children.

Over there on the pages I like the way they write on the failures, "Nailed it!"