Inspired by Janie and chilefarmer in the what do you enjoy most thread, I thought it would be fun to admit some mistakes

Probably one of my biggest. As a kid we always ate Sunday dinner at Grandma's and it always involved some sort of pasta and gravy along with meatballs. Also in the gravy you could find either a nice piece of pork, or sometimes she'd make bracciola. But one of my favorites was when she'd sometimes put a few pieces of chicken in there too. When I got married we moved away from the north east down to Texas, and I had a hankerin for some of that chicken. SO not knowing any better I told my wife to throw a whole chicken in the pot of sauce............ After cooking for close to 10 hrs................the chicken just fell completely apart..............The carcass had completely fallen apart and the gravy was full of every bone from that chicken. :eek: We still ate what we could but I was really embarrassed that I was the one who told her how to do it. :o

After that I decided to call Grandma to find out how "she " did it

Man rick, I have so many.
I grew up eating most anything that didn't eat us first. Liver, fried with gravy was one of the dishes I liked most. My first try at cooking it was not good, you could not cut it with a chain saw. But now I know Grandmother knew best. Wishing I had a plate of her cooking right now, CF:)

I've made hundreds, Rick!

The one I always remember most is when working in my first ever fancy restaurant as an 18 year old. I was instructed to follow a simple recipe to make 1000 Island dressing using a huge floor-model Hobart Mixer w/ a 30 gallon lift-bowl.

I filled the bowl w/ 3 5-gallon buckets of mayo, several #10 cans of Heniz Chili Sauce, several #10 cans of ketchup, a couple gallons of sweet pickle relish- tons of stuff!

But, I musta skipped over the line that said make sure to double-check the speed that the mixer was set on. It should have been set on 1. But it was set on 3!

I turned that sucker on and that crap went flying!

The paddle of the mixer was kickin' out mayo and ketchup so danged hard and fast that I had to back away several steps and couldn't even get close enough to flip the switch!

It took me half a day to clean up that mess. I worked there for 5 years and the day I left there were still pink stains on the white ceiling tiles above the mixer!

This one is on a cousin of mine who was around 17 when this one happened. She was helping her Mom in the kitchen. Her Mom asked her to wash off the chicken for her and when she turned around to look my cousin Amy had the whole chicken in the sink in a nice bubbly bath of hot water and dish washing liquid lol.

The same cousin and her brother were at our Gran's house down the road once around the same time period when my Grandma called and asked me to come down and see what was wrong with the dinner Amy was making. She said it just didnt smell right lol.
I went there and her brother meets me at the door and says can you fix it. Poor girl had not seasoned anything. She was boiling cabbage and around here when they do that they add a tsp or so of bacon grease or lard plus salt and pepper. She hadnt done any of it. She had mashed taters with no milk, butter or anything. I had to fix several other things she had going there but I was able to fix all of it lol. I dont know if she has ever learned to cook.


Kev there are still stains on the kitchen ceiling at Jon's Dads from where his Mom put the beaters in backwards in a new stand mixer she got for Christmas one year. They said she had taters everywhere.

here's one for ya -

my godmother couldn't cook for crap! and forget baking!

back in the 50's (I remember this as if it were yesterday) she bought a cake mix and a frosting mix

brainless her BAKED THE FROSTING and couldn't figure out why it was so FLAT!

and she mixed the cake mix with water and it didn't look like frosting -

then she had the nerve to try to frost it -