“Shelly, God Wants You To Fry”

I envy people like Scribbit who often has wonderful recipes on her blog with pictures that look good enough to eat. Now, I’m not a bad cook at all (if you like bacon grease), but my presentation leaves a lot to be desired. Also, my cooking repertoire is rather limited, because I’m just not very adventurous. The few times I’ve tried to “think outside the box” have been disastrous.

Recently, Scribbit offered a recipe for lamb, and I couldn’t even look at it. All I could do was cringe. You see, God doesn’t want me to cook lamb. I know that for a fact. I’m from Texas, people. It’s Cattle Country. Now, it’s true that Texas is also the biggest supplier of lamb in the United States (you knew I would tell you that Texas is biggest, didn’t you). However, when I was growing up lamb was never on the table.

Meat from a sheep didn’t touch my lips until I was thirty years old. My ex and I had gone to a multi-cultural festival, and I tried one of those Greek gyros. Actually, I didn’t know what I was eating, but after I found out what it was, I thought lamb tasted alright. The next week down at the Kroger store, I was searching for something for supper. Smack dab in the middle of the meat section was a package of sheep meat, so I thought, “Why not?”

I mean to tell you, people, that was the nastiest tasting chunk of gunk I have ever served at my table. My ex and I took one taste, and threw the rest in the trash before we headed out to McDonald’s for some real food. That lamb was horrible! Later someone told me that I had probably bought “mutton” instead of “lamb.” They told me there was a difference in the flavor. I don’t know about that, but I resolved to stick with what I knew. For the next twenty years I did.

Last year, we had invited some acquaintances to dinner. Now, why I did that, I can’t say. These folks were fancy schmancy rich folks from Dallas. That was just a recipe for stress. Those folks lived in a high-priced condominium. Their lifestyle was lavish, because they had never had children. They ate out at restaurants every night! I knew they were not going to be impressed by anything I put on my table. I had to create a new dish to try to show that we are not country bumpkins.

The thing to do was to go down to Dan’s Meat Market and browse for something that would “wow” my guests. Now, Dan’s is not a place that you would stop to visit, unless someone told you about it. On the outside, it looks like a run-down old convenience store. Come to think of it, it doesn’t look much better on the inside. But, these folks have the finest selection of quality meats available in town. In fact, people drive from Dallas and Fort Worth to shop there. And, I love the owners, because they are so generous. EVERY day, they donate many pounds of meat to the local food bank, they help out at every community event that they can, and I have seen them give away food to customers who were obviously down on their luck. People like that get my business any day of the week.

When I told Dan my mealtime dilemma, he said, “I have just the thing for you.” He pulled out a boneless leg of lamb and instructed me on how to cook it. “Just baste it with olive oil, sprinkle it with salt, pepper, and rosemary. Cook it at 325 degrees until it reaches 140 degrees on the meat thermometer. Any fool can cook it.”

I’m not just any fool! I followed his directions, and put that lamb in my glass roasting pan in the oven. Then, I frantically went about my house trying to straighten it and remove any evidence that people actually live here. While I worked, I noticed that my house was filling with a most horrible smell—and it was coming from the oven. A quick check of that lamb leg indicated that it was burning on the pan. I couldn’t have that, so I drizzled a few teaspoonfuls of water on top.

BLAM! The glass pan exploded into thousands of tiny shards that coated the inside of my oven and flew across the room! Dan had neglected to tell me that the roast should have been on a rack. And, I had neglected to remember that water on a hot glass might be a disaster. It was a crisis—so I started to cry.

Just then, the phone rang. It was our guests telling me that they had been detained and would be about an hour late. It was a reprieve! I swept up the remnants of the pan which had spewed outside of the oven, closed the oven door on the rest of the mess, threw the offending lamb in the trash, and set to work creating a different meal.

My offering was fried chicken, new potatoes with parsley (“Kneupper ‘taters” as my kids called them), a spinach salad, and fresh cantaloupe. My husband graciously ran to the store to get a store-bought cake, since my oven was now in no shape to use. Thankfully, the only fried chicken these folks had ever tasted was what Kentucky Fried Chicken sells, so they seemed to actually like the meal.

It’s a year later, my friends, and I can look back on the incident and think it was funny. However, although I have cleaned meticulously I still occasionally find remnants of that glass pan wedged in the crevices of my oven. When I do, I take that as a sign from Above, and I hear a loud voice in my head saying, “Shelly, God wants you to fry.” I tell you what, though, I won’t be frying “ewe.”

Other posts you might enjoy:

1. Good Luck Or Bad Luck? Only The Good Friday.
2. Cast Iron Skillets–they’ve been on the “back burner”
3. Bacon Lust
4. Resurrected Rye
5. Lemon Cookies & Muffins from a Biscuit Mix

Tagged as: beef, cooking, humor, in the kitchen, lamb, Storytelling, Talkin' 'bout Texas