Failed Dinners

I was reading the Slack Mistress's blog post about last night's dinner, and it reminded me of something from long ago. In the olden days, we Yogurts used to host one of the two Passover seders each spring. My mother would start cooking at least a week before Passover started, freezing cooked dishes in the basement freezer.

Back in my high school years, one night I passed through the kitchen to say good night to my mother before heading to bed. She'd been cooking all day, and would be cooking long into the evening. When I arrived in the kitchen my mother was just about to put two apple-maztah kugels in the oven before going to pee. These kugels are so good that we always had two - one to put on the table for the seder, and one for our immediate family to enjoy throughout Passover.

As my mom went to slide one tin into the oven, she somehow dropped it, and it flipped upside-down before landing all over the floor. We looked at each other in horrified shock. My poor mother burst into tears at the stress of having to clean up a huge mess so late at night while also having to desperately pee.

I decided to postpone bed and told my mom I'd start cleaning up and she should go to the bathroom. When she came back, she thanked me. As my mother handed me more wet paper towels to clean the floor she said to me, "We just won't put a kugel on the table this year."

This was so unlike my mother - to save the remaining one for us, but speaks to how much we all loved that kugel. I still usually make it at least once a year.

Please, join me by sharing your biggest dinner disaster in the comments.