Cooking is not something I do on a regular basis. Most of the time, if
I'm hungry, I'll do something with bagels or soup, or just go to the
handy-dandy gas station, about a mile away, that sells tasty hot dogs and huge cups of tea.
But I digress.
Today, I found myself making a large-scale meal: rice fried with chicken
and little chunks of egg. If I ever hosted a cooking show, it wouldn't
be to instruct people on how to make delicious meals - it would be
purely for the comedy that follows me when I set foot in a kitchen.
I spent what felt like half an hour picking apart what was left of a
chicken. I fear I would not be allowed to come near any restaurant's
kitchen, ever - I was a terrible, terrible, lazy chef. After
rinsing off my hands, with no towels (other than the one sitting on the
floor, soaked in homemade tea, which is a story for another time), I
used myself as one instead, and transferred most of the water to my
clothes.
The same problem arose when I got egg all over my hands, and my solution didn't change.
I'm so glad my slightly germaphobic little sister wasn't there to see it.
Anyway, the eggs took forever to scramble. They sat there for far
too long, all smug and runny, and when I got bored and fetched a book,
all of a sudden they were smoking and I spent the next few minutes
furiously stirring them with a spatula, attempting to keep them from
turning into a charred/runny mess.
Finally, though, I got them reasonably under control, and, since I
didn't remember how my father usually did the next part, I just dumped
in all the chicken and hoped for the best. I wanted to do the same with
the rice, but unfortunately, it had other ideas... It huddled in its pot
in a sticky mass, and didn't respond to my increasingly frantic
attempts to scrape it out. All I got for my efforts was a few little
lumps, and I was terrified that my other ingredients would begin to
burn.
Thinking fast, I turned the pot upside down, held it over the frying pan, and shook it as best I could (pots full of rice are heavy!).
All at once, it slithered out and fell in one clumped mass on the pan,
exactly the way it always comes out of those little take-away boxes they
give you at Chinese restaurants.
"YES! Who's a boss?" I cried. "I'm the boss!"
I sat there for a moment, looking at the mountain of rice.
"So... What now?"
The next few minutes were spent smashing it and cutting it with my
spatula, and then mixing the whole mess together. My arms were exhausted
(I have the upper body strength of a sickly hamster), but I was
triumphant. I'd cooked my very first family-sized meal!
Now I just have to figure out what I'll do tomorrow night...
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