“Apple Crisp,” I told my guest, trying to sound confident. “It’s our dessert.”
Actually, it was an experiment. I just didn’t know at the time that’s what I’d made. It should have been delicious. It was full of homegrown apples, Irish butter, unprocessed sugar, sea salt, the best cinnamon you can buy online, and flour. I’ll bet that’s what the problem was. The flour. It wasn’t organic.
I couldn’t blame him for his fearful question. I wasn’t sure I wanted to eat it either, let alone serve the weird-looking concoction. But I knew the ingredients were stellar. And since I thought my normal tried-and-true recipe for apple crisp was too simple and old-fashioned, I figured I’d google something better, my friends would be wowed, and the evening would be a complete success. So, I went online to find someone else’s superior recipe to finish off the comfort meal I’d made for my neighbors. And that’s when it happened.
The internet lied. (Well, it couldn’t have been operator failure.)
“This is the best recipe I’ve ever found!” the author gushed in her too-long post in between all the flashy ads that broke up every paragraph. “I tweaked it and made it better. You’re gonna love it!”
I’d have had her arrested for fabricating evidence, but I threw the proof in the trash and blocked her on my computer.
I blame myself. I don’t even know who that blogger was. Why did I trust someone I’ve never heard of before? Why did I believe her when she’s never once cooked a meal for me? Even more important, why do I keep practicing new recipes and serving them to my neighbors?
To add insult to injury, she raved about her homemade browned butter salted caramel sauce. That ridiculous enticement cost me a precious hour in the kitchen, one of my favorite Pampered Chef spatulas, the first batch of ruined caramel sauce, and a second with a very distinct hint of scorch.
It was supposed to be the finale to a fine dinner. The piece de resistance following a satisfying meal. But more than all of that, it was supposed to bring my friend and me victory if the cards weren’t going right. That was the plan—it’s always the plan. If Lady Luck is flirting with the boys, giving them all the breaks, we retaliate with sugar and inject our opponents with enough carbs to put sucrose in a coma. That’s how we win. First, the four of us eat dinner, then the men cheat at cards, we break for dessert, and finally we show ‘em who’s boss.
Apparently, that only works if the dessert is delicious. We lost six out of seven rounds and half of us went home with a headache.
So, thanks a lot, internet, for failing to taste test all those recipes you let just anybody put up in public. I used to think you had all the answers, but now I know you’re just in it for the pop-up ads. From now on I’m going old school. Back to my worn-out recipe box. Next time I need a tasty treat, I’ll look up the right way to make it in one of the hundreds of recipe books gathering dust on my shelves. And if that fails, it’s back to vanilla ice cream and store-bought chocolate syrup.
Winning at cards is too important to risk gambling on homemade salted caramel sauce.
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