[kelly]

I'll lead off...for some reason I decided to make duck ala orange for my 5-year's birthday party. Don't laugh, there was crab for the kids.

OK, now that you're done laughing at me (and I hope you are), I found a fairly straightforward recipe for the orange sauce...carmelize the sugar, add in the grand marnier and orange juice, what could be simpler? OK, I had to cook julienned orange peels.

All was going well, no problem, sugar carmelizing, orange peel cooking...time to put in the COLD booze and juice. At which point everything crystalized for me...literally...in the bottom of the pan.

And yes, I can curse hot enough to melt sugar.

[jgsearls]

Just had to laugh at the duck story. My ex-CEO fancied himself quite the connoisseur of all things high end. He was sitting in his office yapping on the phone quite loudly as he was wont to do. He started telling a potential client about the dinner he made that weekend. He went on and on about the duck dish he made and how fabulous it was.

The client says, "Oh, was it Peking Duck?"

CEO says, "No, I got it at Giant Eagle." <---Pittsburgh's biggest grocery store chain.

Oy...such a numnut.

[Susan]

Ok, well this isn't exactly a recipe, unless a recipe for disaster counts.

I worked years ago at a non-profit bakery/cafe and every year the director gave out turkeys as a bonus (woohoo!) 4-5 days before Christmas. We had a kind of ecentric secretary-little old lady type whose car was full of cr**. She regularly sought out the tuna juice from when we made tunafish salad for sandwiches so she could take it home to her (many) cats, and she was always sneaking little bits of food and keeping them in her desk. Ok, weirdness established.

Towards the end of the day on Christmas Eve, the chef and I were helping said secretary to take some leftover, unsold breads and so forth out to her car. The only empty(ish) spot was her trunk. We opened it to a rather fowl smell. The turkey. 5 days old. In the trunk. It had been an unusually warm December and was about 70 degrees outside, warmer in the trunk. She was planning to take it home and cook it, but had decided to keep it in the trunk because she didn't have room in her freezer. Ok, crazy lady....back away from the bird.

Still gives me the heebie jeebies!

Susan

[kelly]

Ay yi yi! Maybe she was trying to use her trunk as a solar cooker?

[laurie]

Well, this wasn't really a recipe......but, when I was about 13 I couldn't cook AT ALL and my mom wanted me to try to make pie crust. Well, it wasn't turning out at all (all gummy and everything) so as people did in the country back then, we threw it out in the woods right behind our house for all the little critters.

This opposum started eating it and was having a really hard time. He started shaking his head back-n-forth violently, repeatedly opened and shut his mouth real wide (like he had peanut butter stuck on the roof of his mouth) and used his paw to scrape it out.

Thankfully I can make pie crust now.

[DesignDiva]

These stories are hilarious!

I have one I can share...well, more than one, but that would be a BOOK...

The pastor of my former church is Dutch, and raved about how he missed "olliebollen" which are Dutch-style donuts. I made a lovely huge tray of them as a surprise for a staff meeting. I had my stepson visiting at the time, so I wrestled the twins into their car seat, got him all situated with the seat belt, lugged the filebox into the trunk, got myself in the car, and drove off....and watched the olliebollen merrily bounce their way down the road.

I left the tray on top of the car.