Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Further kitchen crimes...

You will learn more about the J-man as the blog goes on but tonight I want to introduce you. J-man is my "little" brother. Two-and-a-half years younger than me and about six inches taller. Somewhere around year 10 he stopped being an annoying brat and started the business of turning into a gentleman and one of my best friends. He is one of only three people in the world who I never have to censor myself with. I love him to death.

Writing the fridge clean blog tonight got me thinking about other people's kitchen crimes and J-man is a prime candidate. He's a chef now but back on the farm donkeys years ago when our mum was sick with cancer and we had to make dinner between us because my Dad was still at work he used to cook in the farm kitchen with me. Most nights it was passable. Okay, most nights it was a disaster. I like to think that all those years experimenting with different flavours and foods contributed to where he is today - a mad chef with awesome culinary skills.

Naturally there were other steps between experimenting as a kid and being an ace chef. When he was a bachelor he owned no device for cooking save an electric kettle. Even if he had owned a fry pan, his stove was on the fritz and he was permanently out of gas to cook with. As a result the J-man could probably put together an entire recipe book based wholly and solely on meals you can make inside your Breville kettle. Inspired!

Misuse of kettles aside, we now come to one of his "kitchen crimes". For our engagement party Charles and I were given a rather ugly platter as a gift from a family member that I don't especially like*. It instantly became the platter we use whenever we prepare a dish that has to go to someone else's house. That way, if we don't get it back, we don't care. Anyway, the platter went missing for about two years and we had no idea where we'd left it. It was one of those things we wondered about but didn't care enough about to chase. Then, just as we were becoming comfortable with the fact that the ridiculous thing had been lost for good, it made a sudden reappearance in J-man's hands.

I couldn't believe it. Even when he gave it back to me I couldn't recall when I'd given it to him and I told him so. The conversation then went like this;
"Well - remember my 21st birthday?"
"Yeah..."
"Remember how you made me a black forest cake?"
"Kinda..."
"Well you gave me the leftover cake to take home and share with my friends."
"Yeah I remember now. So you've had that platter all this time?"
"Yup."
"Gees - you've got a good memory if you can remember that."
"Oh, it wasn't hard," he said, smiling, "After we'd all tucked in the fruit on top was gone and there was only about two slices' worth left. So I chucked it in the fridge and it's been there ever since."
He sucked on his cigarette while I gaped at him in shock.
"That cake has been in there all this time? But it's been two years! Surely after all this time it must have been nothing more than a pile of mould - you're lucky you could even get it off the platter. I would have thought it'd have eaten the glaze off by now or something."
"Nah it didn't go mouldy or anything. The cream was a bit discoloured and brown but it looked pretty much how you'd given it to me."
"So why am I getting it back now, are you having a big clean up or something?"
"Not as such, no," he said, dragging on his cigarette and raising his eyebrows at me. "You know my mate Cluggo?"
"Yeah."
"Well he stayed over on the weekend and we had a bit of a bender. Seems he got up in the morning before I was up, opened the fridge and thought black forest cake would make a spectacular hangover breakfast."
"Oh my God. Is he all right?"
"Yeah he's fine. Didn't swallow it or anything. But I thought I'd better do something about it before someone else found out how old it was the hard way."

And that, my friends, is the worst kitchen crime ever.

* Don't worry, he doesn't like me much either - hence ugly, cheap platter as engagement gift.

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