Cooking Disasters 101

Look, I'm a pretty good cook, but I have a tendency to "experiment" at times. Most of the times my experiments are good, well, at least mostly they're edible and you won't die. Sometimes though, the experiment goes bad...A lot like the experiment with Frankenstein... I should explain.

I love farmers markets. I love to buy all the fresh new vegetables and sometimes there are some vegetables I don't know much about so I buy them to try. This doesn't happen often because there are not many I haven't tried and most of them I like...with exception of okra...I can't seem to find a way that tastes palatable to me. It seems slimy and slippery. It's a consistency thing with me. I'm sure there are ways to cook the stuff that would pass muster, but I haven't experienced it yet. I'm just not a fan.

This week was the first week the farmers were outside with their wares. I walked around the vendors looking at what they had to offer. Most of the stuff was green leafy stuff and I bought some of it, but there was one thing I knew about but I hadn't experimented with it before, so I had to buy it.

The stuff is called "Ramps", or spring onion, wild leeks and a number of other names. It can be found in the Northeast and in the mountains of Appalachia. They have Ramp festivals, why? I don't know but they do. It grows in wet lands. Ramps are a cross between onion and garlic. They're definitely more pungent than leeks. In fact some folks think they smell like a combination of garlic, onions and goat sweat... Believe me that's not too far off the mark. Normal people would read that description and shy away from buying it, but I'm the adventurous foodie, not quite as far out as Andrew Zimmer of Bazaar Foods, but I'll try things.

The farmer I bought the ramps from made sure they were meticulously clean. They grow in wet muddy ground so they're usually coated with mud. Cleaning them can be tedious. They looked beautiful. It's great to see the first veggies of Spring. You have to get these things out of the ground quickly because they turn nasty if left in the ground too long...That should also have given me a clue about the little green leafed devils...

I chopped one up and put it into a salad, one mind you, not a bunch, one. The salad was on the counter when Larry came into the kitchen and asked me if I had forgotten to shower that morning. (This was the second clue...). I laughed and said it was probably the onions in the salad he smelled. I wanted to belt him, but I've become kinder in my old age. That, and it hurts to punch someone.

We ate the salad, along with some other food and we lived. I figured I'd find some other recipes online for the green devils for the next night.It sounded like a rational thought.

Ah...potato, ramp soup, sounded pretty good. The base was chicken stock, so how bad could it be? Well, I'll tell you, it looked like normal soup, but the smell was...aromatic? noxious? putrid? I honestly don't know what to call it. It wasn't something that normal people should have to smell.

Larry had been downstairs, he came up and said, "Oh my God, what is that smell, and can we find it to kill it?' I didn't think it was that bad, but then I hadn't left the room for a while so I was used to the smell.

I served the soup along with crusty bread and a small salad. It looked pretty good. As I brought the soup spoon up to my lips, I got a whiff of the smell. Honest to God, it sort of smelled like paint thinner. Stupidly, I ate the soup. I ate half of the soup, to be honest. The first mouthful almost didn't go down. You know how that is, you put something in your mouth and something about the substance isn't right. Your brain is saying to you, "listen, numb nuts, you better not ingest that, cause I'm going to rebel". Did I listen? No, I didn't. (when will I learn?). Larry, good sport that he is, really tried to eat it, then I think God took mercy on him and caused him to drop the bowl and spill it all over himself. He got three spoonfuls into his body before the reprieve.

We both thought better of eating more of it. The toilet ate it. I thought we were going to be OK, until an hour later. All Hell let loose, as well as my bowels. My brain rebelled and told my bowels to expel the offending stuff from my body ASAP. My insides must really be scared of my brain because they listened to the brain and nearly exploded before I got to the bathroom...

Larry is still in hysterics, laughing his head off. The house smells like goats have been working out with weights and treadmills in an over heated gym, and haven't seen hide nor hair of any deodorant or showers for days. I'm hoping it's warmer tomorrow so I can air out the house.

"Ramps" that's what they're called, stay away from them. This has been a public service announcement!