We moved into our first home-home almost 5 years ago. It was a brand new home that no one had lived in before & I was under the impression it wouldn't be our final home. So, like anything I own (& especially something that I don't intend on keeping forever & ever & would have to one day sell), I wanted to take extra good care of it.
Switch gears.
In the 4 apartments/condos we lived in in Southern California, it seemed as though I could never get the countertops or stove super clean while living there. I would scrub & scrub & there always seemed to be a film all over the hood over the oven, the stove itself & often the surrounding countertops.
What could it be? The culprit ... bacon grease.
Switch gears.
Several years after moving into our home-home, my Mom, my sister & my brother-in-law came to stay with us. While we were coming up with fun summer meal ideas, Alicia suggested my Mom make German potato salad. German potato salad requires bacon. Um, no.
Ground Rule #1 in my house = no cooking bacon. If you want bacon while vacationing in my home, you have to order it from a restaurant & go pick it up or cook it on the barbeque. (And yes, that may have been one of our biggest, lamest arguements ever.)
Switch gears.
We were recently invited to participate in an Appetizer Contest Party, so I asked my sister-in-law, Shauna (who is a fantastic cook) for some recipe ideas & I also asked my brother who is a chef in Portland for ideas as well. I received a list from each of them & read the list to Shad. Guess what he chose?
Cream cheese stuffed prawns wrapped in BACON with a beurre blanc (white wine butter) sauce.
I could've & I should've said no, but I wanted to win.
Switch gears.
After I got all the ingredients & prepped everything as I was told, I got dressed for the evening. Big mistake.
The babysitter arrived & as I started plopping this beautifully wrapped prawns into the pan, I lost it. My fort of towels that I built around the pan on the stove didn't protect anything from being spattered on with bacon grease. And to top it off, I don't own an apron so not only did my clothes stink, my hair stunk & my skin was melting.
I started to get more & more frustrated as the bacon started to unravel & my pesto cream cheese was making my prawns UGLY. It was a disaster. I excused myself & let Shad finish the mess I had started while I went to cry in the bathroom for a few minutes.
Why did I break Ground Rule #1?! I was so mad at myself. I let my competitiveness get the best of me & now no one will buy our home when we put it on the market ... all because of the infamous bacon-wrapped prawn incident in March of 2011.
After I pulled myself together & explained to the babysitter that I wasn't really a basketcase, we were off to the party! It was a fabulous night, I must say & we had a great time & ate some really great food.
The winner of the night went to a lobster fondue & rightfully so. If you're going to serve anything with lobster, you should win.
And, I'm proud to say, I took second place. All the mess & tears were worth it, not because I won but because I had a good time with good friends who got a good laugh at my expense, but felt bad enough for me that they voted for me. Hope all you readers did got a good laugh too!
Now ... anyone know any tricks for removing bacon grease?!?
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