Let's get cooking

I'm about to start reading Julie & Julia a memoir written by Julie Powell.  Julie attempts to tackle learning to cook from Julia Child's cook book. An amazing feat. 

Starting this book is causing me to think back upon my attempts to cook. I'll share a few instances with you all.

Mark and I had not been married very long when this first incident occurred. I was making dinner for us. It was probably the first married dinner I had made. It was some kind of past dish (I've blocked most of the details from my memory). Mark wanted garlic bread to go with the pasta dinner. He told me to put the bread in the oven and set the oven to broil. In the meantime, one of Mark's best friends showed up at our house. So now I had an audience for this cooking debut. Well I left the bread in the oven on broil for a bit. Finished the pasta and all of a sudden our smoke detectors started going off! Plus smoke was actually rolling out of our oven. Mark ran into our kitchen fanned the smoke detector and was able to get the alarm to stop. While he was doing this, I opened the oven and discovered that our bread was burned black. Then while I could hear Mark's friend in our living room laughing, Mark gave me a lesson on how to use a broiler. And from that moment on, I have not been allowed to do much cooking around our house.

Many of my other cooking attempts have gone off in much the same way. Once I mixed up the macaroni and cheese powered 'sauce' with some potato 'sauce.' My brother still likes to point this out. One Thanksgiving a cousin and I decided to make a cake. The cake was so horrible my 80-year-old grandfather was the only one who would eat it and I question the state of his taste buds at that age.

And the last event I'll share. I was going to make a lemonade cake. It require lemon cake mix, concentrated lemonade and powered sugar. Sounds easy enough right? Well I made the lemon cake and then I was supposed to poke holes in the cake an pour the lemon-sugar mixture all over the top. Well I poured a layer over the top of the cake and then had lots left in the cup so I continued to pour until it was empty. I iced the cake and put it in the fridge. I took it to my grandmother's house and served my family. I think I made their mouths permanently puckered. 

So with the reading of this book, I think I might break out into the cooking world again and see if I can improve upon my lacking skills. I'll let you know how it goes.