Thursday 26 July 2012

How to wreck boiling water - by Frere Cuisine

My second brother (I have three) called me the other day and asked, "Sister, is it possible to wreck boiling water?" Pause. "Hello?"

After assuring him I was still on the line, I asked him to clarify what he meant by wreck boiling water. He explained he has a new girlfriend and wanted to impress her with his (lack of) culinary skills and so decided to make her - yup, you guessed it - mac and cheese. From a box. While I turned my nose up in disdain whilst simultaneously holding the phone to my ear, and glad he could not see my face, I asked him, "So what happened?" He said he put the water on to boil, with the heat on max and walked away. He got distracted and promptly forgot about it and set off the smoke detector when the water had boiled down and scorched his saucepan. Oh dear.

"Well," I said, "Your first and only mistake was to walk out of the kitchen." He agreed. I asked him what he did for dinner that night and he said that he feigned that his stove was on the fritz and took her out instead. Nice work.

Maybe you can wreck boiling water. I didn't think it was possible. I guess it is true that some children inherit genes from their parents and some don't. Frere Cuisine definitely did not inherit the cooking gene as my mother, my grandmother and great grandmother is, and have been, excellent cooks and I learned from each of them. Obviously, he did not.

In dedication to my brother, here is a picture of inspiration.


In the end, I went to his place, made a bunch of food for him, put it in the freezer and wrote instructions on how to heat up. And yes, the instructions included not to walk out of the kitchen while heating up his dinner. ;)

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