Last night I had the craziest dream that I was in a stand-up comedy contest. At the very last moment, I panicked and wanted to back out. However, I wanted to save face, so I forced myself onto the stage, and began to ad-lib a completely unrehearsed act for my audience. Of course, it was loaded with sarcasm and self-degradation, the hallmarks of my existence. I actually got a fairly warm reception from the audience. Even the occasional chuckle. I was hooked. But, as most dreams do, this one began to go south as I realized I really had no "ending" to my act. I sorta mumbled some very unfunny story and ran off the stage, mortified. Freud would have fun with that one, I'm sure. Ah, gotta love those nocturnal nightmares!
Easter Lasagna Fiasco
This year, I had the brilliant idea of making homemade lasagna, from scratch. This means homemade noodles, which is no small task, as those of you who've made it before know. It took my husband and I the better part of Friday afternoon to knead the dough, roll it out, cut it, and crank it through the pasta machine. And not just one pass through the pasta machine, as I so naively thought. No, four or five passes through for each piece, gradually making the dough thinner and thinner until you could almost read a newspaper through it. (Although honestly, who'd want to do that, the news is all bad these days). But once again I digress.
Once the pasta was at the desired thinness, each long strip had to be lovingly laid out on the kitchen table. We quickly ran out of room and had to move onto the dining room table. Heck, I felt like we were in an Italian kitchen somewhere off the coast of the Mediterranean. I was feeling pretty proud of our handiwork.
Fast forward to the next day, where the mother of all lasagna assembling began. I spread out all the ingredients and got to work. Husband was at his post, boiling the lasagna noodles, which I must say he did quite well. I was in a complete state of panic, thinking all of that hard work would go down the drain. I was certain each noodle would stick to it's neighbor and we'd have a complete disaster on our hands. He patiently reassured his crazy wife that it would work out okay, and much to my relief, he was right.
Back to the assembly line. Line the bottom of obscenely large lasagna tray with noodles. Next crumbled Italian sausage, lots of cheese, spoon homemade spaghetti sauce all over and repeat. When all was said and done, I managed to build five layers of cheesy goodness. I was now feeling like an Italian Chef Czar! The world was mine! My guests were going to positively drool over this culinary masterpiece. Do you sense something amiss? After all, I have a track record for things going awry and if you guessed this to be the case with the lasagna, you would be correct.
As it turns out, I forgot to include a very key ingredient; the ricotta cheese. When I realized this, I deflated like a popped balloon at the end of a very long birthday party. I was completely devastated. All that hard work, down the drain. My beautiful lasagna, ruined. I spent the better part of the next hour alternating between beating myself up and sulking, wondering how I could have done such a stupid thing and how, oh how would I fix the unfixable? (Unfixable is a word in my blog.)
After posting my stupidity on Facebook, I received a slew of helpful comments about how to "fix" my poor lasagna. I finally decided on my sister's suggestion, to top the lasagna with the ricotta, and lifting the edges and tucking the ricotta all around as best as I could. To wrap up a very boring story, my worries were in vain, as it turned out wonderful and I received very genuine complements. Moral of this story; check and double-check your ingredients, and more importantly, check your big fat ego at the door. Humbled? You'd better believe it.
Next Easter, I say we go out for dinner.
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