What's the best story you have about overcoming a disaster in the kitchen?

Christmas day a few years ago I had the family over for the Christmas meal. All went well until we returned from a walk and I realised the oven had not come on and the turkey was stone cold. The element had perversely chosen to short out.

My sister saved the day. We cut the turkey up and somehow managed to cook it in pots. The meal turned out great.

I always have hosted Thanksgiving for anyone who wants to come.
The day before Thanksgiving, after making some pies, I decided to put the bigger oven through a cleaning cycle because a cherry pie bubbled way over. It finished the cleaning cycle and the door would not unlock.
So I have a 30 pound fresh bird to cook and no oven of proper size.
A kind neighbor down the street who was not cooking a meal, allowed me to wheel the bird in a little red wagon down the street and use their oven.

@flutherother Thanksgiving for for being able to think outside the box.

@blueiiznh I love the visual of you and your little red wagon hauling that turkey.

Outside of the oven as well.

^^Very good. Wish I’d thought of it.

I made a 3 layer cake to take to a dinner party for a group of friends. It was beautiful. It wasn’t lop-sided. The decoration was perfect. I proudly took it into the kitchen to show our hostess. As we admired it, 3 cracks began to form. We watched as the cracks spread and the whole cake fell into 3 parts. What could you do? We ate it anyhow and it was delicious. What are you gonna do?

I was expecting friends for dinner and while chopping pumpkin I managed to chop off a slice of fingertip. There was another adult in the house and my young daughter. My neighbour drove me to the doctor to have my finger looked at, the other person stayed home, looked after my daughter and waited for my guests to arrive. By the time I arrived home, the expected friends were sitting round the table enjoying themselves. I have no recollection of what happened about the meal, all I can remember is chopping off the tip of my finger. The doctor thought it might reattach itself and so bandaged it up, as it transpired the slice of fingertip did not reattach but I was amazed because over time the tip of my finger grew back, there is no physical evidence today of what happened 23 years ago.

My favorite dessert for Thanksgiving has always been pecan pie. One year I went home to spend Thanksgiving with my Mom. She had the pie all cooked and ready. It was going to be the highpoint of my meal! Well, it was pretty cold that year and during the winter months my Mom, especially at a time like Thanksgiving when the refrigerator is packed to the gills, uses the garage as extra cold storage. Dinner was served with all the trimmings and then it was time to eat that pie. My Mom brought it into the house, took off the saran wrap that was on the top and started cutting the pie into slices. But all of a sudden she noticed that something was terribly wrong. It was swarming with ants!!! They hadn’t been immediately apparent but as she started to slice the pie they started crawling out. My mother was aghast and I was the consoling witness to her disaster whilst my heart was breaking.

But what could we do? We picked the ants off and ate it anyways.

No, no, I’m kidding you.( I couldn’t resist especially since @Sunny2 used the phrase a couple times.) What we really did was console ourselves with Pumpkin pie. In my mind, a poor substitute but I guess it was a way of overcoming the disaster that was irremediable.

^^ You had me believing. I wondered if the ants were still alive. If not, I’d probably blow them off the pie and eat it. But maybe not.
We had ants in our freezer once. They were all frozen and seemed to have been after ice cream that had melted. It took a thorough cleaning to get things back to normal.

@Sunny2 Oh they were alive alright!!!! And there were lots of them! I’ll never get that image out of my head. It’s funny now, but at the time I couldn’t laugh because I felt so bad for my Mom when I saw her face, so crestfallen!

Oh, frozen ants is a little gross but easier to overlook than a frozen iguana! I once found that in aluminum foil wrapped up in my freezer. Some poor deluded child had put the dead pet formerly known as Iggy in cryogenetic freeze to await his future resurrection. Unfortunately said child did not let me know that she was putting him in there. It scared the hell out of me!

^^ That is so funny. I think my kids were responsible for the melted ice cream and ensuing ant march. Probably didn’t close the door tight.

Ha ha! I got a wild hair to make a fruit bouquet for a family get together. Me, being me, decided to do my own thing rather than copy something. I’m not real patient, either. So I started sliding grapes on a stick and topped it off with a strawberry. I made about 10 of them. Try to imagine…..grape, grape, grape, grape, grape, grape, strawberry. My daughter walked in, took one look and shrieked at her son to “DON’T LOOK! GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN!” She was joking….but when I looked at her she said, “Mom…take a real good look at those!” I did, and saw what she saw. Total penis things. We laughed so, so, so, so hard!!

^^ Isn’t the unconscious mind a wonderful thing?!

@Dutchess_III I don’t have any culinary disaster stories to share, but I have to say I am glad I decided to follow this question. Damn, that is funny.

@Sunny2…NO!! I don’t do sex!! Ever! Just ask my children!

Oh it was @glacial. It was TURRIBLE!! :)

^^ I didn’t say you do, but your unconscious mind may. How would your kids know?

You missed it! If I never did sex, I wouldn’t have kids! :)

^^You could have adopted without doing the deed.

That’s true.

When I was young, they decided that boys should take Home Ec. One day, we had to make pizza. I have no idea what happened, but my pizza came out all gooey and yucky and un pizzalike and no joke, I have never attempted to make pizza since.

Well, that’s one way of overcoming a disaster.

Might try making pizza nekkid next time. Jellies keep telling me that being nekkid cures everything. I refuse to try it!

Naw, I cook nekkid all the time. There’s no one else to see. I’m just not a pizza man, nekkid or clothed.

I hope you nekkid cooks don’t do any frying with the grease spattering. Ouch. That’s what aprons are for.

Ow ow!!

I’m a man, and I got the burn marks on my chest to prove it!