Disaster in the Kitchen

Remember that new food processor I bought 3 weeks ago? Well, it's toast.

My colleagues from work (well, for the last 3 years, we were colleagues) get together every year at Christmas for a little gift exchange, luncheon, and chat. We were like ships passing in the night when we worked together, because we all taught at different times, different days, and sometimes wouldn't really see each other for weeks at a time. So these Christmas get togethers were great, because we could all chat with each other, and eat a nice lunch to boot.

One colleague officially "retired" last May and left me to do the dirty work for the program. The other colleague decided that becoming a mommy in the middle of the semester was a good plan, so from 4 of us, we are down to 2 who are officially in the department. My active colleague and I have some time together one day a week, but it is never enough time to talk shop AND chit-chat about things in general. She and I had a great time last Friday because she invited me to a lovely Advent concert, and I then took her out for a bite to eat. We had a nice time chatting then.

Now, how does the food processor work into this story? Well, because making a pie crust takes 2 minutes in the food processor, I volunteered to make a quiche for our annual Christmas luncheon today, so I could use my new food processor once again. Our little preggie has been and still is a vegetarian, so it had to be veggie bound. I gathered all the ingredients, so I thought. Yes, I had the eggs, the spinach, the butter, the cheese, but wait, where is that onion that I thought I had stashed away. No sir, not in my cabinet. At 7:00 a.m. in your jammies is not a good time to find out you are missing a vital ingredient. But I forged ahead anyway.

The crust did only take 2 minutes to do. But in putting the food processor bowl together and taking it apart a couple of times, I noticed some small shards of plastic that had fallen to the countertop. UH-OH--perhaps that warning that putting the bowl together wrong could damage the bowl should NOT HAVE BEEN IGNORED! I think I smashed the handle by putting it together in the wrong order, and by damaging the handle, the processor refused to turn on, BECAUSE THAT IS WHERE THE SAFETY SWITCH IS LOCATED. Curses, swears, and be darned, I couldn't do any more with the food processor to complete my quiche. Get out the cheese grater, and watch your knuckles!

So the missing ingredients, the broken food processor, the less than ideal recipe selection, the lack of time to do it up right, the broken pie crust, all in all, it was a disaster. Oh, and I'm wearing a huge bandage on my arm where the imprint of the hot oven door is permanently burned into me! My colleagues managed to choke the quiche down, and eeked out a small compliment here and there. We had a lovely fresh salad to go with it, some yummy focaccia bread, and a homemade banana cake for dessert. And we had a tour of our colleague's lovely spacious home, beautifully decorated for Christmas. She had shared her tales of many long home improvement projects that they were doing, now finished, and their home shows so beautifully.

It was a disaster in the kitchen, but a lovely luncheon because good friends were together again.

P.S. A new bowl is on its way, I ordered one online for only 38.95. Hope I remember to put it together correctly in the future, or this food processor thing is going to get to be mighty expensive.