Good Grief Charlie Brown

My husband HATES dessert. He hates quite a few things that are sweet, the only exceptions I can think of are Cherry Coke and the weird Kool-Aid mixture he used to drink in high school that is 3 cups of sugar, 2 packets of Kool-Aid, 1 pitcher of water. Um, ew.

So I was surprised when we went out to lunch and he ordered a 7 layer bar from our local deli. (Every year we eat there on something he has dubbed "Customer Service Day" because one time four years ago he ate there and had already ordered when to his chagrin he discovered they don't take credit/debit cards, only cash, and they GAVE him the food with nothing more than a promise that he'd come back and pay. He did (well, I did since he was at work).

Anyway- I was thumbing through my Baking Illustrated and found a recipe for 7 layer bars and made them on Sunday afternoon. Seriously delicious stuff. I was suspicious at first at how simple the recipe is. Add stuff willy nilly to jelly roll pan and bake for 30 minutes.


My reaction:
"Hey this is really good!"
Dearest: "Oh, yeah it is!"
Me: "And I made it!"
Dearest: "Um........Ok, follow that to its logical conclusion...."

Dramatic pause.

Me: "Ok, so later tonight we'll all suffer terribly with food poisoning and die?"
Dearest: "Yup."

Hmph. The thing is, he has every right to say that. He's the one who was hospitalized with food poisoning about 10 years ago.

When we were married a sagely neighbor gifted me this:


and this:On the one year anniversary of Dearest proposing to me I tried to bake a chicken from a recipe in the book. Ended up using part two of the gift as a topping. The next week, I tried to make up for it and made a lovely no-bake dinner: fresh salad greens from our garden. About six hours later we were at the local emergency room, Dearest being intravenously re-hydrated and the nursing staff glaring sideways at me as I apologized for the cause of the food poisoning. Salad? Really? I gave up on trying to be a super wife, cooking just wasn't my thing.

Ok, I don't really give up easily on anything, but my major attempts through the years have been inedible or caused stomach illness. It doesn't even have to be me cooking, but recipes I've shared have carried the curse (sorry about the Turkey Tetrazini WhimsiGal!).

Lately, though, and with the help of Christopher Kimball and staff, I have muddled my way out of the muck that is my cooking. I know that substituting Olive Oil for Crisco is not so good, I know that adding cinnamon and apples to EVERYTHING may not be to everyone's tastes, and I know that baking is chemistry and throwing in more of an ingredient I like can (and has) cause a chemical reaction that leads to the fire department knowing that I ruined dinner before I do.

But....24 hours later no one is sick from my dessert bar, just yet.