Truffle Fiasco
Ok. Let’s put it out there. I am a disgrace to the female gender. I know, I’m a disgrace to Mom’s side of the family. After all, Mom and Grandma and Great Grandma and the Aunts and Great Aunts do it so well. I just don’t. I don’t like it. I’m not good at it. If I have to do it, more often than not, I'll ruin it. Oh yes. I’m talking about the “C” word: Cooking.
Seriously, I am not exaggerating. If I boil water, I’ll burn it. Making rice? Comes out fried or in a soggy mess. Chicken? Undercooked or overcooked. Beef roast? Let’s be merciful for a moment and just call it “extra crispy”... and dry.
Ok, I can make a salad. But what really goes into “making” a salad? I buy pre-washed, pre-mixed, pre-packaged greens, add pre-roasted nuts, a handful of pre-crumbled “feta” cheese and throw in some (yes, of course) bottled dressing. Voila! That’s “my” creation.
Desserts? It’s almost tragic because I love eating them. Except if I make them. For Christmas, I decided to “make” (oh the quotations marks on this piece!) chocolate truffles with Mom. Well, she owns the recipe book and my biggest contribution was buying the ingredients. She was really trying to show me how to make them –oh Moms never lose faith in their offspring apparently!
Lucky me, she prepared the mixture and said “leave it in the fridge so it hardens”. All I had to do a few hours later was use a melon scooper to make little balls of chocolate and roll them on coconut flakes. Simple. Yes? ... No!
Hours later, Glen is watching the hockey game and I make this whole production of getting the chocolate truffle mix out of the fridge, complete with expressions of “Hmm”, “Yumm” and such. I’m even wearing an apron! There’s the melon scooper, the coconut, the fancy container where I’ll put the truffles in and I proceed...
Well. How could I know that the darn chocolate mix was going to get SO HARD?
There is no melon scooper bringing out any little truffle balls! Little chunks of chocolate come off, jumping at me like spitting at me and making fun of my pretentious aspiration to make chocolate truffles!
I think Mom might –after all-lose her faith in my “culinary” abilities... (Argh! Stop the quotations already!)
