It's (Almost) National Kitchen Klutzes Day--Let's Celebrate! by Connie Vines

(The actual date is June 13th--but I blog on the 28th of each month, so this gives you ample time to celebrate!)

Even those who know her/his way around the kitchen, are able to relate to the occasional--or daily kitchen mishaps.  

Writing, Painting/Drawing, Music, and Cooking are classified as the 'Arts".  I find creative people are usually gifted, to some degree, in all of the Arts. (I'm also inclined to include gardening under the Arts umbrella, however, that's another blog post.)

Culinary Arts, in which culinary means "related to cooking", are the cuisine arts of food preparation, cooking, and presentation of food, usually in the form of meals.

I must admit most of my 'heroines/heroes" are able to cook.  However, as in real-life, there are Kitchen Klutzes in my novels, too.  I must also confess, I routinely have more than my share of kitchen mishaps.  Especially, since we have all been spending a great deal of time cooking family meals these past couple of months.

June 13th honors those who would like to cook and be in the kitchen, but it just doesn’t seem to work well for them. After all, it is National Kitchen Klutzes of America Day.

Klutz:  most commonly referred to as a clumsy person.

Kitchen Klutzes are the people who set out with the intentions of being like Ree Drummond, Molly Yeh, Gordon Ramsey, or even the great Julia Child as they open up the cookbook.   Mixing bowl or Kitchen Aide mixer and ingredients on the counter, they imagine knife cuts as swift as Wolfgang Puck or Bobby Flay. However, reality quickly dissolves all those dreams as smoke billows from the oven, skillets erupt in flames, and salt is mistaken for sugar. Those knife cuts turn bloody, cookies and fingers are burnt, cakes go flat. The Kitchen Klutz has struck, and visions of spilled milk are pitifully cried over.

It may be necessary to keep a first aid kit and fire extinguisher handy when Kitchen Klutzes are around. Eat a sandwich before going over to dinner. Be ready to call 911 and have your favorite take out restaurant on speed-dial if things don't go well.

HOW TO OBSERVE #NationalKitchenKlutzesDay

There several ways to celebrate this humorous holiday.

Laugh at yourself. Share your mortifying stories of kitchen failure over a slice of microwave pizza.

Give your favorite Kitchen Klutz the gift of cooking classes. Or, better yet, offer to cook.

Watch your favorite cooking flops show.

Don’t forget to share your stories and celebrations using #NationalKitchenKlutzesDay on social media.

Or try a few of these never fail meals.

Walking Tacos

Heat a can of chili in the microwave (in anticipation of stove top misadventures).

Take smaller single-serving packs of Fritos and then slice them open on the side, then serve the chili right inside the packets of Fritos. Add in additional toppings of cheese, diced onions and minced jalapeños. You just hand everyone a fork and they each have their own individual servings of Frito Chili. It makes for an easy cleanup too!

Crab Fondue (For that Romantic Evening Meal)

Nobody really needs a reason to eat more cheese, but this crab fondue recipe is a good one. Crab meat (or imitation crab) and packaged cheese, this fridge and pantry meal is easy yet satisfying.

8 ounces cream cheese, cubed and softened

1 pound processed cheese, like Velveeta

1 cup dry white wine

12 ounces canned crab meat

1 dash of Old Bay seasoning, or to taste

In a fondue pot, slowly melt the cheeses in the dry white wine.

Fold in the crab meat.

Heat through.

Serve with crusty French bread, cut into squares.

Please share a recent, or memorable meal, you prepared. You know, it's the story which is forever embedded in the family oral history.

I'll go first!

Let me share my first kitchen mishap.  I was a new bride and prepared Gumbo for dinner  (my husband is from Louisiana).

Gumbo requires a thickening agent.  I like okra (my paternal grandmother was from Texas and she prepared fried okra).  I also added ground sassafras powder.  This adds a fruit sweet flavor and also smells like root beer.  It is part of Cajun and Creole cooking--also a thickening agent.

Well, my gumbo had to be pried from the pot because it had the consistency of a paste.  Very thick, very hard paste. The rice, cornbread and pecan pie were delicious.  Not a healthy meal, for certain, but it stuck to our ribs for several days.

HAPPY NATIONAL KITCHEN KLUTZES DAY EVERYONE!

For fool-proof kitchen recipes and Cajun Romance, remember to read my latest novel: Gumbo Ya Ya!

 

Remember all of my novels features recipes, too!

Click here for BWL author site and links: bookswelove.net/vines-connie/

For my website: Social Links, Purchase Links, and more: connievines-author.com/

Happy Reading,

Connie

For Western Fix'n's and Western Romance:

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The Key to Your Heroine--is Hidden in Your Closet? by Connie Vines

 Research is my middle name.

I plan family vacations to include possible ‘future book settings’, ‘historical events’, ‘regional foods’—well, you know where I’m going with this.

In the past, research often required hours spent at the public library using the card catalog, or reading microfiche.  Oh, how the Internet has simplified my life.

However, breathing life into your heroine, and bringing your story to life, are all elements that writers spend hours and hours perfecting.

Sensory details, setting, motivation, and that ‘something’ which is the spark of each and every story is often elusive.  Sometimes, just sometimes, the pieces of your fictional universe fall neatly, and unexpectedly, into place.

This is what happened to me.

While sorting through my closet, I discovered a treasure of carefully-packed-away-items.  Being the eldest daughter, I’ve acquired the family photos, was blessed with the oral histories of grandparents and one great-grandmother, as well as that of and other relatives.  I carefully placed the items on my bed.  I stroking a silk scarf belonging to my maternal grandmother. I focused on the blending of colors and the threads of silver catching the light. This was when I knew I was experiencing an 'important moment' in her life.  A snap-shot of who she was, who she wanted to be—a time before she was my grandmother. Before she was married. Before she had a child of her own.

She was a young woman.

Had she gone shopping with her sister or her mother to purchase this scarf?  Or had she ridden the EL, after work, to a department store in downtown Chicago?  

Was she going to a dance? 

To dinner?

Or, to the theater?

Her mother, Marie, was raised on a farm in Bohemia, Czechoslovakia (before it became the Czech Republic). As an adult she moved to Prague, working as a secretary until she married her husband, They had 6 children, my grandmother was the youngest.

In 1898, the family (minus my grandmother, who was born in the United States) boarded a ship and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to Ellis Island and before settling in Chicago, Ill . 

My grandmother in the 1920s working at A.B. Dick.
Which later became Xerox.  She became their 1st female supervisor and held
 that position until she retired.

I located pieces of her jewelry, the scarf still smelled faintly of her perfume (or was it simply my memory of her fragrance?), necklaces, earrings, broaches, and bracelets. There was a beaded evening bag.  I recalled a photo taken when she and her sister worked as extras in the motion pictures of the 1920 and 1930s.  They stayed with their older brother (musician, Tony Lada of the Louisiana Five) in San Monica, California.  

Tony (Anton) Lada's band was the first band to tour Europe. He preformed at the Troubadour. He was one of the founding members of SAG .  There were so many stories about Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby, and many more. . . 

I was certain I had it in a box, perhaps a few of the pictures had already been scanned to my computer.

The wax music cylinders were all damaged in a flood but I had some sheet music and one '78 record. 

Louisiana Five/youtube link

These are the steps that help me discover my heroine and my hero.  

This is why my characters become living, breathing people to me and to my readers—step by step; their stories are revealed to me as snapshots of pieces of their lives. 

Gritty Old Chicago?  

The glorious film sets when talking pictures were cutting edge? Or the days of silent movies.

Rudolph Valentino was all the rage (Catch his silent movies on YouTube—he really was was a hottie!)

There are so many wonderful stories in passed down through a family oral history.

The relative who immigrated from Sicily.  

I also have my great-great-grandmother’s butter churn from the 1800s— when made the journey from Tennessee via a covered wagon (the Scottish branch of the family tree) but that’s another story.

So, what treasure do you have hiding in your closet?

What stories have your ancestors passed down to you?

What story is waiting to be told?

Thank you for stopping by to read my blog posting.

My current release, "Gumbo Ya Ya" is set in New Orleans and the Louisiana bayou. My husband's family is from Louisiana. New Orleans and The French Quarter are wonderful cities. 

Remember, my novels always, always include delicious recipes. And Gumbo Ya Ya, not only has gumbo recipes; but old time pass-down-family recipes, too!

Happy Reading!

Connie

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