Nina In New York: Kitchen Nightmares, Holiday Baking Edition

These days, it's all I can do to keep edible, non-rancid food stocked in our refrigerator. Two nights ago, I ate half a bag of Tostitos for dinner. It's bleak, people. It seems the more advanced my husband and I become in our lives and our careers, the more our domestic abilities take a steep nosedive. But back in the heyday of my youth (my early 20s), I was a veritable whirling dervish of productivity, confidence, and curiosity. And baking was my jam.

I was good. I tackled complex recipes and ambitious projects. The harder it looked, the more I wanted to conquer it. The holidays, of course, were my time to shine. I'd bake for the office, for my friends and family, and for the Pajaks in particular. Despite the fact that they are all very trim folks without much of a sweet tooth or the penchant for repulsive overindulgence from which I and my clan suffer, I just really wanted to impress them. And the best way I could think was to make them the coolest desserts I could. I started modestly with flavored truffles, which were a messy success. From there I moved onto cheese straws, challah, babka and rugelach (for a little interfaith flair), and Italian rainbow cookies, which were both delicious and could have survived a nuclear apocalypse. All took immense effort and yielded excellent reward.

But it was the caramels that done me in.

I had grown cocky off of all my successes. I thought, baking shmaking! I've never made candy before. That'll really get 'em. Inspired by a page out of Martha Stewart Living, I made up my mind to make gingerbread caramels, and present them individually wrapped and adorably packaged in paper cones or button boxes or some crap like that. It all began well enough. In order for the caramel to attain the proper consistency, one must be sure the candy cooks to a very specific temperature before heading to the fridge to set. I thought I followed the directions to the letter. I even bought a brand new candy thermometer to insure optimal performance. So when it was time to remove the cooling candies from their baking sheet and begin cutting them into cute little cubes, I shrugged off the fact that they still seemed a little gooey to me. Must all be part of the process, I thought.

I placed a cutting board down on my only and extremely tiny counter, and inverted the baking sheet onto it. I realized there was a serious problem when I began slicing. As I finished a cut and extracted my knife, the caramel would fuse back together like it was Adamantium. I sprayed more Pam on the blade and started again. And again. That's when I noticed that the caramel was spreading and creeping beyond the borders of my cutting board. Thinking quickly, I grabbed an extra cutting board from our (only) shelf and slid it under the fast-expanding caramel. I continued trying to cut, but the longer the caramel stayed out of the fridge, the faster it grew, and it quickly overtook my second board. So I grabbed another and tried to place it at the edge of the counter. And when that was insufficient, I grabbed a baking sheet, and another, and at this point I'd gone far beyond the reaches of my actual counter and was now a one-woman balancing act. I kicked one leg up to support one of the boards and simultaneously attempted to shove back the wave of caramel which had somehow seemed to pick up momentum and was taking on a life of its own. My dog at the time, an elderly, curmudgeonly, deaf cocker spaniel, wandered in to receive the sweet bounty which was pouring onto the floor and into his matted coat.

It's worth mentioning that Mr. Pajak, then my boyfriend, was a mere four feet away sprawled out comfortably on the couch. None of my shrieking seemed to disturb him in the least, and believe me, I was loud. I was cursing a blue streak and every so often would erupt in "OH MY GOD, IT'S EVERYWHERE!" or "HOLY S&!$ IT'S EATING ME ALIVE! HELP ME OH MY GOD I NEED HELP EEEEEEEEEEK!!!!"

Nothing.

It wasn't until my very large, very sharp chef's knife, which I'd long sacrificed to the hungry sugar blob taking over my kitchen, somehow loosed itself and fell directly onto my foot.

"I'M BLEEDING!" I cried. Mr. Pajak propped himself up slightly on his elbows and craned his neck to see into the kitchen.

"Everything all right in there?" he asked.

"NO!" I sobbed.

So, hero that he is, he ambled in and began scooping the caramel back into the pot in which I'd cooked it. After I bandaged my wound and we cleaned up as best we could, I decided to bring it back to a boil to get it to the truly right temperature. I did, and this time it hardened up nicely. So nicely that my knife couldn't pass through it, and I wound up tearing off ragged chunks with my fist and balling them up into little tiny pieces of cellophane and hurling them into a Ziploc in a rage. After about fifteen minutes of this I was red-faced and sweating and I'd only gotten through 1/16th of the caramel. So I folded it up into a giant, 10-lb slab and shoved it into a plastic bag.

"Done. Enjoy," I said, handing it over to Mr. Pajak.

Then I cried a bunch and cursed Martha Stewart's name for a while until I felt better.

I wish I could tell you that was the last time I did any holiday baking, but it isn't. I do choose easier recipes now, and I will never again attempt anything involving a candy thermometer, I still haven't learned my lesson. I've only gotten lazier.

The end.