I Rachael Ray-ed myself into a corner

I Rachael Ray-ed myself into a corner

I like Rachael, I think she is adorable. She’s perky, comes up with her own little cute ‘vocab’ words and smiles all the time.

Would I eat at her house?

No way.

Why is that?

She’s not an avid hand washer. De-fooding from both ends of my body isn’t my idea of a good time.

I’m not a chef and I don’t play one on TV (uh, but she does and that is important) but I don’t think you are suppose to touch raw meat then other foods without washing your hands properly between them.

I am a wicked hand and utensil washer. Where I stand to cook I am between a sink with a garbage disposal (so bad Eddie can’t have dinner out of my garbage can anymore) and my trash can.

I wash my hands, knife and cutting board between everything. Is it too much? Probably. But I don’t know about cross-contaminating what-with-what makes people sick. (Did ya get that?) And to be honest, I’m not really that interested in finding out because de-fooding is the only true test so I just wash all my stuff all the time.

She’s making meals in 30 minutes. I’m taking 4 hours but I know my stuff is clean.

Anyway I like how she cooks. She doesn’t measure a thing. Handful of this, a glob of that and somehow it becomes dinner.

I’ve checked out a couple of other chef’s too. There is one guy that for the life of me I cannot remember his name. He wears a shirt with a big ass pirate skull on it and his refrigerator looks like the hood of a stock car.

Dude!

I figured he’s probably be a safe bet for cooking stuff the guys would like just based on that.

Well, I lasted 10 minutes into his show. I have no friggen idea what the hell he was cooking and what the hell the ingredients were. I don’t even know if you can get any of that stuff in this country.

Of course when I go to the store here, I can’t identify most of the food in the produce section now.

There was some weird round baseball sized thing with points on it that I thought about buying just so I could bring it home and cut it up to see what was inside of it.

That’s a risky thing to do though. I mean, think about it.

What if it’s a pissed off thing, like an onion? Onions fight back when you cut them. What if this thing exploded? It DID have points all over it.

Thing could have shot off like a hand grenade if I tried to cut it with a knife, right? For all I know it could have required special tools to open it.

Then the other night I was flipping through the channels and came across another cooking show.

The guy that runs this show seriously either needs a hug or needs to get laid.

Maybe both.

Yeah, both.

Who couldn’t use either of those things, bad mood or not?

He was really pissed off the few minutes that I could stand to watch it. He screamed at the other chef’s (even made one cry) threw food around the kitchen, he just completely freaked out all over the place.

What the hell is wrong with this guy?

I had to check to see what I was watching so I wouldn’t make the mistake of ever watching it again.

Hell’s Kitchen with Chef Gordon Ramsay.

Okay, he’s is Satan. The show made more sense.

This guy really needs to find another line of work that doesn’t involve food or being around people because he obviously hates both with an ever-loving passion.

Anyway, I finally have a kitchen with working appliances so I thought I’d give creative cooking a shot. I’ve watched about 45 minutes worth of cooking shows with 3 different chefs. That counts for something, right?

I had cube steak and some kind of 30 minute marinade stuff that was a teriyaki – sesame- honey flavor.

Is cube steak really steak and if so, what the hell happened to it? Is it just hamburger trying to make more of an effort? Or is it steak that has lost all hope?

We may never know.

Uh, unless you know a butcher, I guess.

Oh, embarrassing.

Moving on now…

I pulled out my cutting board, my big sharp knife and an onion out of the refrigerator.

My refrigerator doesn’t look like a stock car hood but someone has put a magnet on it with a cartoon baby with his ass out (Stewie from Family Guy) on it that says ‘Make yourself useful and wipe my butt!’

It’s not my magnet but I have a sneaking suspicion I know who it belongs too.

There is also a Mickey Mouse sticker that Brother stuck on it. I told Brother Del would freak out about that (and he did) but Brother said it was ‘easier to ask for forgiveness than permission’.

I’m pretty sure that’s Brother’s motto.

He was right too. Del did forgive him but he would have thrown himself in front of the refrigerator at the last second and ended up with the sticker between his lookers if he had been here when Brother originally had it in his hand.

I tossed the onion onto the counter like a baseball, swore at it at the top of my lungs for rolling off the counter and onto the floor then forgave it and grinned like a fool to cover all three chefs and their influences.

I ended up chopping the onion up so much that it was nearly pureed. I don’t know what happened; I just got onto a roll when I was chopping. There may have been some kind of seizure involved or something, I’m not sure.

So I kept opening the cupboards and refrigerator and throwing things in a bowl to marinade the ‘only your butcher knows for sure’ steak.

Had I known at the time that not only was it going to be really good but that Del would love it that much I would have paid much more attention to what I put in the bowl.

Del had taken some of the ‘butcher mystery’ steak and put it on his plate. After he tasted it, he started eating the rest right off the serving plate. It was lucky for me that I had taken mine or I might have had my hand pierced by his fork when reaching for some.

Then Del wanted me to make it again a couple of nights later because he wanted Brother and Bill to try it too.

K-rap-olama kids!

Dude!

Son of a bitch!

Now I Brother was here the night I decided to try an attempt to make it again. I had to admit to him that I Rachel Ray-ed it and I really had no clue if I could do it again.

“Retrace your steps. Just do exactly what you did the first time. It will be fine.” Brother said.

Okay, back to the refrigerator. Throw the onion, swear at the top of my lungs then forgive and grin. So far, so good.

Brother watched me with one eyebrow raised. “Really?”

“That’s what I did the first time.” I said.

“I think you might be spending too much time alone.” Brother said.

Brother left me alone in the kitchen to finish cooking. I threw what I could remember into the bowl and tasted it.

It was wrong. I was forgetting something. It was something important too.

I went into the living room with Brother to try and remember what the hell else I did. I knew it was a Rachel ingredient because everything I threw into the bowl, I imitated one of the three chefs and she was the one I was lacking.

My god. I DO spend too much time alone, don’t I?

The onion was the pissed off chef because onions are an angry ingredient. The garlic was the dude chef because I saw it on his cutting board but I don’t know if he ever touched it. Rachel, Rachel. Humm. What would Rachel do? She’s sweet…

“Yummo! Brown sugar kids!” I yelled and hopped up from the couch.

“Seriously, you need to get out more sister.” Brother laughed as I bolted back to the kitchen.

I finished the marinade and stuck the butchers’ mystery meat into the refrigerator to be ignored for the next few hours when Del called and said he would be working late.

Super-duper!

Dude!

Mother-f….

Del thought he’d be home around 11:00PM. 11:00PM came and went.

I was starved and everything was ready. I asked Brother if he wanted to go ahead and eat. We could stick Del and Bills in the refrigerator and they could eat when they got home I told him. They wouldn’t mind. It would be fine.

Brother doesn’t call them Del and Bill anymore. They are now an enthusiastic “Cast member Del!” and “Cast member Bill!”

Really enthusiastic too. You have to have your voice go up and get really loud when you say their names.

“I’m not eating without ‘cast member Del!’ It’s impolite to sit at a man’s table and eat his steak while he’s at work.” Brother said and went back to the video game he was playing.

Impolite? Impolite? Seriously? Isn’t it impolite to make someone starve to death?

Weren’t we raised by the same parents?

And excuse me but isn’t he my little brother? Don’t the laws of siblings require he do what I say? I could call mom, she is the law, you know.

11:30 came and went. Midnight arrived with a serenade from Cornelius, the bird that lives in Brothers coo-coo clock.

“Brother…” I started to say when he cut me off. “No. We eat when they get home.”

Oh yeah? You want to make a bet on that little brother?

I marched into the kitchen and cut off a piece of steak. It was so tender that I could cut it with the fork, no need for a knife. I carried it back into the living room on the end of the fork.

20 years of living in Tennessee may have made my little brother into a polite southern gentleman but I’m still a rude Yankee and a woman. I know how to manipulate any guy into eating when I’m hungry.

“Could you just try this and see if it’s done?” I said and held the fork in front of Brother’s face. Brother pulled the steak off and stuck it into his mouth without taking his eyes off his video game.

For about a second.

Brother’s eyes got really big and his eyebrows went up. “Holy hell! What did you do to that?” Brother asked and put his controller down.

“I Rachael Ray-ed it. Is it good?” I asked pretending I had no clue.

“Call ‘cast member Del’ right now and see if he is on his way home!” Brother said sitting up and searching for my phone.

I lose my phone constantly. It’s not usually a problem if one of the guys is home because I can use their phones and call it but if I’m alone, I have to wait for someone to call me and hope I’m in the area of it when it rings to find it.

Our place is big. I leave my phone in the strangest places too. Now you know why you can never reach me. I can never remember where I was when I ended the last conversation I had with anyone.

“So you want to eat now?” I asked Brother.

“Oh hell yeah, I do now. I wasn’t excited about cube steak, but good lord! That is good!” Brother said.

I called Del 47 times in 5 minutes and every time it went to voice mail. His phone was off so he was still working.

Brother fought tears.

12:30 came and Brother and I debated on what to do. We could eat and clean it up before Del and Bill got home and they would be none the wiser. But chances were the minute we sat down, they would walk in the door.

“Let’s chance it.” I said trying not to faint from hunger or exhaustion. I mean my god. It was after midnight and we still hadn’t eaten for crying out loud.

Brother made that face people make when they are going to do something bad but aren’t happy about it. There was a battle going on between his head and his stomach. I could almost hear the cannons being shot off.

Just exactly how polite do southerners need to be anyway? A person needs to sustain life, you know?

No wonder the north won. We were fed. The south was weak from hunger.

“Let’s just wait a little longer. They have to be home any minute.” Brother said.

1:00 AM and no cast members were in my house.

“Okay, this isn’t dinner anymore. It’s a drunken breakfast. I’m eating.” I said to Brother and started to get food on a plate. Brother reluctantly did the same.

I swear just the second Brother and I sat down and had a mouthful of steak, my stupid cell phone rang.

“Answer it.” I said to Brother who was trying to swallow his food without chewing it so cast member Del wouldn’t know we were eating without him.

“That’s not cool.” Brother said almost choking when he answered the phone.

No, it’s not cool to sit by and watch someone starve to death, okay?

I was a minute away from being a shadow of my former self. I needed food.

Del and Brother talked for a minute and Del couldn’t believe we waited for them to eat. “Dude! You could have put ours in the fridge. You didn’t have to wait for us! I can’t believe you did that!”

See? Total disbelief. I told you so.

Where opposites attract, so do rude Yankees.

Del told Brother that they would be home in 10 minutes. Brother hung up the phone and picked up our plates from the table.

I had a forkful of food in mid-air when he did it too.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked feeling the nasty chef making his way out of my soul. Something was going to get thrown and vile language was about to fill the air.

Maybe that is what he is so pissed off about. Maybe people come along and take his dinner away? Is he just really hungry?

“We are waiting on them. You won’t drop dead in the next ten minutes, I assure you.” Brother said and walked into the kitchen with my plate.

Now I would have ‘maybe’ accepted that if Brother didn’t stand in the kitchen and continue to nibble away at the steak.

“I understand why Del was eating off the serving plate.” Brother said. “He was hording his. This is cube steak disguised as filet minion.”

Brother may have become a polite southern gentleman over the years but he was born a rude Yankee. It’s like freckles; they don’t just go away because you relocated. They just blend into your tan.

At 1:45 cast members Del and Bill finally walked in the door and I grabbed my plate back like an animal. All three of them might be bigger than me but there was a serious risk that they were all about to get an ass beating if I didn’t eat soon.

Not one out of the three of them would ever hit a girl for any reason. It would behoove them to remember that when they are messing with me.

I can and will smack them and I was a minute away from going Ramsay on their asses.

Okay, so here is the Wobin recipe for ‘Butcher’s mystery meat’

1 bottle of K. C. Masterpiece 30 minute marinade. Honey-sesame flavor.

A ‘not quite but almost’ pureed onion that was thrown across the kitchen, sworn at and then forgiven. Chop the hell out of the thing. Stop when you can’t see anymore through the tears.

Or when you slice into your fingernail. Try to avoid that if you can because it kind of sucks.

A forkful and a little bit more of chopped garlic

A baseball sized ball of brown sugar. You can swear at it, call it dude and then let it know it’s going to be ‘yummo’ when everything is said and done. It enhances the flavor.

Throw it all into a bowl with a lid. You need the lid because every once in a while you have to take it out of the refrigerator and shake the shit out of it. While shaking it, any of the following sayings are acceptable.

“Dude! Wake up!”

“Okay, kids! Make yourself fab-o-lishish!”

“You son of a bitch! Be good! Be better! Ah! Go to hell!”

Marinade for 47 years or until your cast members get home.

As long as you throw, grin and swear, it will turn out great.

LYMI!


OPPS! Edited to add: Throw that sucker right into a frying pan with some of the marinade. Cook it until it's 160 degrees. (about 20 minutes or 47 hours) No need to make anyone de-food, right?