Smoke and Flames #mfrwauthor

Welcome to the monthly topic from the MFRW challenge. The topic is "Name the ways an important dinner has failed."

This was the easiest post for the challenge. If you've followed my blog for a while you'll know that I am not a gourmet cook and that I've reacheed the age where you no longer have to host all the family dinners. And more importantly, that I don't like to talk about myself. So here goes.

Image by Alexander Antropov from Pixabay

The topic brought back the memory of a Thanksgiving dinner many years ago. I was the host and cook for the turkey. Hours of planning, preparation, and cooking went into insuring things would go well. That doesn't include the days of cleaning and straightening up so that the house would be acceptable for the in-laws. Then came Thanksgiving Day. At this point I don't remember exactly what dish caused the problem, but just as my mother-in-law walked through the kitchen door, a pot on the stove caught fire. Yes, actual flames, although they were still fairly low. A pan lid handled the one issue. As to the other? My MIL didn't say a word, just kept on walking through the kitchen, placed the dish she brought on the dining room sideboard, and took off her coat.

Other ways dinners can fail are: (Note - these are not necessarily known from experience.

Turkey overcooked to the point of leather.

Dropping the wedding cake (or having someone run their finger through the icing)

Weather and sickness can impact dinners and are totally out of our control. Blizzards and ice storms are especially destructive to plans. Of course, don't forget hurricanes too.pyp

Since this year is almost over, I'll share another oops, one that doesn't necessarily deal with a dinner, but seemed appropriate in this time of reflection.

When my husband was going into the military, some of his friends decided to have a surprise farewell party for him. My job was to keep him out of the way for an hour. Well that night included two additional ways that dinners can fail. Dropping a dish onto the floor, cracking it and spilling food everywhere and having people show up late. 

Now to the failure. The future husband was obstructive and everything I tried to keep him away from the party failed and he was walking back long before the hour specified. The person arranging the party was running late and as we turned the corner of the building he saw us, tripped, and dropped one of the party supplies onto the ground. 

That's as much as I'm going to say.

May all your dinners be perfect and never fail.

~till next time, Helen