Hope No One's Watching Two years ago, I was working as a caterer in a very chi-chi restaurant in Sun Valley, Idaho. We were the place for the rich and famous to order take-out catered items and baked goods for the holidays. As a very small space making very large quantities of food, we sometimes had to get creative with the storage of finished items. On the day before Christmas Eve, our bakery staff had created a ton of Yule logs (OK, probably more like 2 or 3 dozen), and needed a place to store them until they were to be picked up the next day. The finished logs took up an entire baker's rack, and the walk-in cooler was already full of the rest of the catering items to be picked up the following day. The restaurant was located in a small remodeled house, and literally every available space had already been utilized for prep, baking, storage, etc. At 2:00 AM, in desperation, the bakery manager finally found a place to store her rack of Yule logs--the bathroom in the back of the restaurant, which was notoriously cold due to a lack of insulation. This solved the storage problem until the next morning, when customers started to arrive to pick up their Yule logs. We had all worked most of the night to finish the take-out items and were really pretty tired, but we were busy helping get things together for the customers when they arrived to pick up their meals. When one of the first customers of the day came in to pick up her Christmas dinner and dessert, the girl working the front counter asked us where this lady's Yule log was. The reply, which was overheard by our customer, was "Oh, it's in the bathroom!" When our four children were growing up, our baby, Julie, always hated for her older brother and father to snitch her buttered crackers off of her plate. They knew this, and they would deliberately distract her so they could do so. Well, Julie grew up and married, still hating for someone to steal her crackers, and she actually took the time to tell her new husband not to do so. Julie and Johnny invited us ( mother and dad) to come over to their new apartment and eat with them. The apartment was lovely and all very off-white. Furniture and rugs were also off white. As we sat eating at her nicely set table, I noticed a red stain on the white carpet. Nosey me just had to inquire. Johnny said that he was so glad I had asked. He then proceeded to prod Julie into tell us how the stain got there. It seems Julie had made chili for supper one night and had her buttered crackers sitting on her bread plate. Johnny slyly reached over and took some of her crackers. She caught his movement out of the corner of her eye and she slapped her hand down towards his to stop him. She missed his hand and instead caught the rim of the soup bowl. Up flew the bowl, chili and all--it did a flip in the air and on the way down, it landed upside down on top of Johnny's head. The chili ran down his head and face onto the off-white rug. Needless to say, to this day, he never snitches her buttered crackers anymore. Fortunately, my most hilarious disaster occurred in the privacy of my own kitchen . . . and I was alone. I was making a Mocha Brownie Torte and I was using a small portable hand mixer for whipping the cream for the filling. It had espresso powder in it and I leaned over to smell this wonderful aroma. As I did so, my (long) hair got caught in the beaters and before I knew it, my head was caught up against the mixer and the mixer continued to run! Unraveling my hair from the beaters was an experience I'll never forget. Needless to say, I threw out the whole thing and started over! Here's one from many years ago, back when we were poor as church mice and renting a house with a tiny kitchen. Limited counter space always proved to be a challenge when cooking for a dinner party. Every available surface was utilized, including the top of the washing machine in the utility area, desks and even the wood-burning stove (when it was not up and running, of course). Anyway, special guests were invited and I wanted an especially impressive dessert that I could make ahead. I'd spent what was a fortune to us at that time on the finest ingredients: mascarpone, cream cheese, fancy liqueurs, and real heavy cream which I whipped myself. I'd even purchased a 12-inch springform pan for my creation. After removing this divine cheesecake from the oven and letting it cool, I propped it at the corner near the sink (full of fresh hot soapy water) while I removed the ring. Well, you guessed it, as I lifted it a bit to ease the ring off, it slipped from my hands and landed right into the sink with a belly flop and a decidedly soapy splash. I quickly rescued it, but it had been rendered an unattractive mess in the accident. Soap suds were hardly the frosting I was hoping for. I cried so loudly my husband came rushing downstairs. I was inconsolably upset. Like a dutiful spouse, he tried to be supportive while trying equally hard to keep a straight face. I couldn't bear to throw it out right away and stuck it in the refrigerator until I could rally sufficient bravery. I served ice cream that night. (The next morning, my husband and I stole a few spoonfuls from the center of the cake and it really was a divine cheesecake!) BACK TO MAIN DISASTER STORIES PAGE Catherine S. Vodrey is available for freelance writing, editing, fundraising/development, and photography projects at: Post Office Box 835 East Liverpool, Ohio 43920 USA E-MAIL: WordBanquet@gmail.com Thank you for visiting www.WordBanquet.com!