Thursday morning: Your blogger saw the greatest food-related disaster via misunderstanding since January 31st, when puckish Top Chef runner-up Marcel Vigneron misplaced his kona kampachi fish before the finale, and was unable to utilize it as a component in his third course. Unlike Marcel, however, my own error was not due to having two unmotivated saboteurs as sous chefs. I'm just a little dyslexic (and a little bit rock 'n roll, but that's neither here nor there).
This past week marked the annual Henderson County Livestock Show, and the attached Project Show, an arts and crafts expo open to 4-H members. Throughout the course of five very busy days, I managed to complete nine baked items for the event: a 3-layer white cake, a coconut cake, a brown sugar bundt cake, a buttermilk cake, a turtle cake, a toffee-chip cheesecake, a chocolate tart, some chocolate-glazed pecan bars, and some chocolate chunk coffee cookies. All from scratch, of course. On Wednesday, I awoke at 5:00 AM to show rabbits, arrived back home in the evening, and spent no less than 7 hours finishing all of the icings and glazes for my various offerings (only the buttermilk cake could stand alone without embellishment). I stayed up until 3:00 AM completing and assembling all of my dishes. I was awake and on my feet for 22 consecutive hours, and by the time I went to bed, my feet literally felt like they were on fire.
When I awoke just 3 hours later and packed all of my stuff, I felt triumphant that I had achieved so much, and relieved that I could go home in just an hour and take a very long nap.
Imagine my chagrin when I realized that I had arrived 45 minutes too late, and that my entries would not be accepted. I had misread the schedule, and thought that entries were due at 10:30 AM, instead of 8:30 AM. In actuality, entries were due on the grounds by 8:30, and judging was scheduled to start at 10:30. D'oh. As I put the "sexy" in "dyslexic," I did not catch that difference. I was absolutely devastated that I would not get to exhibit my projects, since cooking is one of my greatest passions. I wept. And hollered. And then I wept some more.
As I went to water and feed my rabbits, tears were still streaming down my face, and I had to explain what happened to many different people in my vicinity. My friends Eric and Jessica caught wind of the fiasco, and sought to help me through a period of great anger and disappointment in myself. They suggested that we start an impromptu bake sale for a competition that our shotgun sports 4-H club was hosting on Saturday.
It was a great relief for me to be able to do something useful with my projects, rather than just going home and having their presence be an unwanted reminder of what a fool I had been. Though, I was still a little bit upset that I would not get to hear people's comments. Because of this, I was actually relieved when a goat shower passed by our table and ripped me a new one, Anthony Bourdain-style, by informing me that the billowy icing on my white cake looked "sick... like a cream cheese frosting." I was going to shoot back at her that a cream cheese frosting is nowhere near that fluffy, but I was a bit stunned at her exhibition of such a discerning palate, since she was a rather spherical young woman.
Chunky nay-sayers aside, our table gathered a lot of interest from some very sympathetic family friends, and my items sold out in about 45 minutes (except the chocolate tart, which we had reserved to eat ourselves as celebration/therapy). We pulled in a cool $200 to go towards buying trophies and belt buckles for our competition.
At the end of the day, I realized that, what would have been a mere contest between myself and others, turned into a stirring display of goodness and charity, from the people whose idea the bake sale was, and from the chivalrous customers, each one a family friend, and each one probably not really that interested in the items for sale, but wanting to help a person in need. When I stumbled and fell, others were there to pick me up, taking what would have been a meaningless contest and turning it into a true feast of love. And that, dear readers, is exactly why I have dedicated my life to cooking and the food industry... the desire to bring people together and make them happy. Thank God for missteps such as these, which reveal themselves to be blessings.
Greatest love,
--Seguin
Mangia!
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