Master Chef to Total Clod

I was so PROUD of myself last night for making exactly the meal I wanted from ingredients I already had in the house. I sliced a medium onion (with a knife), sauteed it until browned in a saucepan with a little butter and olive oil, and then added a can of vegetable broth, a dash of dry sherry, and a few grinds of pepper, and let it simmer for about 30 minutes. I then topped it with a toasted slice of Metropolitan Bakery whole wheat sandwich bread (oh, so seedilicious) and a handful of grated gruyere and stuck it in the oven at 275° for about 10 minutes. It was AWESOME, especially accompanied by the sliced Cameo apple I picked myself that afternoon (in a pouring rain, I might add) and a Yuengling Black & Tan (purchased from Pete's Famous Pizza, which is just around the corner, for $2.50). I obviously rocked as a chef, and this amazing onion soup was proof.

me and the boopster picking apples in a downpour
how do you like them apples?

Of course, the universe knows a thing or two about hubris. I wanted to use some of the 10 lbs. or so of apples we picked yesterday, so I decided to make an apple buckle/coffee cake. I wanted to make sure the apples were sliced thick enough so we could taste them in the cake, but not so thick that they wouldn't cook properly, so I pulled out the mandoline that Winsha gave us for our wedding three years ago. I'd never used it before because, quite honestly, I was scared to death of the damn thing. I just knew I'd lose a finger using it.

I got one Crispin apple sliced perfectly, however, so I thought, "OK, no problem! This isn't so scary!" And then, as I was slicing apple number 2, I looked up to tell Al what kind of butter to buy for me at Trader Joe's. In the middle of a sentence that started, "It's the unsalted European-style butter in the blue and yel......", "yellow" turned into a yell. "ARE YOU OK?" Al asked, loudly but as calmly as possible, since Austen was in the room. I grabbed what was left of my thumb and replied through a clenched jaw, "NOT OK. NOT OK. DEFINITELY NOT OK" while walking very quickly in a loop around the kitchen and dining room and holding a rapidly-reddening dishtowel around my wounded digit.

After a few minutes of attempting to hold panic at bay, I started wailing. We couldn't get my thumb to stop bleeding long enough to smear some Neosporin on it, so we finally smeared some on a Band-Aid and managed to get it wrapped around my finger fairly tightly. It took another 10 minutes or so of ice and elevation to get the blood to stop bubbling out the top of the bandage, though. The good news is that Austen showed concern when I was freaking out, but he didn't start crying himself; he stayed calm and out of the way in his Pack 'n Play. I think this was mostly due to Al's efforts to underreact than overreact, and the fact that Al's first instict when I started in with the "NOT OK, NOT OK" was to grab Austen and take him out of the room so he didn't see all the blood.

I do still have a right thumb, thank god, but a chunk of skin and an even bigger chunk of fingernail are now missing from it. Sadly, I think the mandoline will be going back into its box for another three years, and I won't be making apple buckle today. On the plus side, this wound makes the horrific papercut I got on my left middle finger earlier today seem like nothing at all.

Posted by Lori in food and me, me, me at 3:32 PM on October 23, 2005

Comments (7)

Anonymous:

Sorry to hear about your thumb. Being terribly clumsy with sharp objects, and having an apple tree, forced me to find some way to slice/peel apples safely. Check out the Apple Peeler-Corer at William-Sonoma. All you have to do is cut the apple in half once it comes off the device and you have slices. The only downside is it peels the apple. Although come to think of it, you could probably just move the peeling 'thingy' out of the way and just use the coring part. I've also gotten around this by putting the peel into the pie in smaller pieces. You can also use it to make cinnamon apples since you end up with an apple with a big hole in the middle ripe for stuffing with cinnamon and brown sugar. I should probably be making one as comfort food to make me feel better about my poor performance in fantasy football! LOL :-) Hope your thumb is OK.

Anonymous:

Jeez....The sacrifices you will make for yummy baked goods is astonishing :-)

Lori [TypeKey Profile Page]:

Am I right in assuming that was you, Sally, who recommended the W-S Peeler-Corer? :) I'll check it out, thanks!!

mustangsallye@comcast.net:

Yep it was me. What gave it away? My last place fantasy standing? hehe Sorry, I was tired and forgot to enter an email address.

Lori [TypeKey Profile Page]:

Yep, that was it. :) I'm only middle of the pack myself -- if I could just combine the teams from my two leagues, I might be doing better!

Josie [TypeKey Profile Page]:

Would it be too much to ask if you could provide a picture of this horrific contraption that sliced your finger? Just curious...

Lori [TypeKey Profile Page]:

Here are three: http://www.flickr.com/photos/avocado8/tags/kitchenweapon/

Oh, and btw -- I did end up making the apple buckle! Yum!

Comments

Sorry to hear about your thumb. Being terribly clumsy with sharp objects, and having an apple tree, forced me to find some way to slice/peel apples safely. Check out the Apple Peeler-Corer at William-Sonoma. All you have to do is cut the apple in half once it comes off the device and you have slices. The only downside is it peels the apple. Although come to think of it, you could probably just move the peeling 'thingy' out of the way and just use the coring part. I've also gotten around this by putting the peel into the pie in smaller pieces. You can also use it to make cinnamon apples since you end up with an apple with a big hole in the middle ripe for stuffing with cinnamon and brown sugar. I should probably be making one as comfort food to make me feel better about my poor performance in fantasy football! LOL :-) Hope your thumb is OK.

Posted by: at October 24, 2005 3:10 AM

Jeez....The sacrifices you will make for yummy baked goods is astonishing :-)

Posted by: at October 24, 2005 11:06 AM

Am I right in assuming that was you, Sally, who recommended the W-S Peeler-Corer? :) I'll check it out, thanks!!

Posted by: Lori [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 24, 2005 11:37 AM

Yep it was me. What gave it away? My last place fantasy standing? hehe Sorry, I was tired and forgot to enter an email address.

Posted by: mustangsallye@comcast.net at October 24, 2005 2:17 PM

Yep, that was it. :) I'm only middle of the pack myself -- if I could just combine the teams from my two leagues, I might be doing better!

Posted by: Lori [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 24, 2005 2:42 PM

Would it be too much to ask if you could provide a picture of this horrific contraption that sliced your finger? Just curious...

Posted by: Josie [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 24, 2005 3:11 PM

Here are three: http://www.flickr.com/photos/avocado8/tags/kitchenweapon/

Oh, and btw -- I did end up making the apple buckle! Yum!

Posted by: Lori [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 24, 2005 4:51 PM

Comments are now closed.