What Could Go Wrong Did: A Holiday Tale.
This day was a complete and utter nightmare, where I battled power and water issues, yet somehow got through it all to ensure this family's Holiday meal made it to the table.
Tom and Shannon were new clients of mine, living in a small house in the woods in North Carolina. They had contacted me in early November and wanted a chef to pre-make their entire Thanksgiving meal so that they could heat and serve when their parents came over Thanksgiving day.
We decided on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and I would be using their kitchen for the first time. I arrived with all the things to make a fairly traditional meal to serve 6. There would be, of course, the turkey; a 12lb bird fresh from the local butcher. The sides would be all the usual suspects: mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, dressing, corn, candied yams and soft dinner rolls. They would simply pull out the tin containers for each item and reheat in a 350 degree oven for 20-30 minutes. Everything would have been cooked to the “just done” stage, except the turkey, which would be fully cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees, sliced and heavily wrapped in its own juices. Gravy would be made on the side, not using the precious juices that would help the turkey stay moist during reheating.
Their oven was much smaller than I remembered when I met with Shannon the week before. It looked to have been built in the 1980’s, I thought. I prepped the turkey and placed it on the lowest rack first as I knew that it would take the longest. Next I peeled and cut up the potatoes and got them into a pot of water to cook on the stove. I compiled all the green bean casserole ingredients into the reheating container of disposable foil, and placed on the lid. I labeled it and put it in the fridge. They would simply bake it off tomorrow. I peeled and sliced the sweet potatoes and dressed them with the cinnamon-maple syrup glaze and got them into the oven on the top wrack, setting a timer for 45 minutes. The corn would be canned as Shannon requested, so she could put that on the pot to heat tomorrow as well.
I decided to do some of the dishes before I began prepping the dressing. As I began to wash the bowls and knives I had just used, the sink began filling up with water. I tried the disposal switch on the wall behind the sink but nothing happened. I then took a wooden spatula and inserted it down into the sink’s drain, moving it around in circles in hopes it would dislodge whatever was causing the clog. No luck. I then looked under the sink for a plunger. Again, no luck. I wandered around, finding the utulity room, peaking into cabinets, searching for any kind of plunger, but nope, none to be found. I searched their bathrooms and finally found one in the master bathroom on the second floor. I hated walking through peoples homes in search of something I desparetly needed because I felt it was a violation of their privacy, but this was an emergency.
I went back downstairs and took all the dirties out of the sink and started plunging. After each few thrusts of the plunger I looked to see any movement in the water. Whatever was clogging this sink was extremely lodged in there. I thought if it was a grease clog I could boil water on the stove and fill the sink with it then start plunging. I went to get a pot for water when I saw that the stove, which was electric, was completely off. The lights that had indicated that the oven was on and that the top burner was on wasnt on any longer. “What the hell?!” I said out loud. I started pushing buttons getting no response. OK, maybe the fuse blew, I thought. Back to the utility room to see if I could find the breaker box. Luck! There it was. I opened the fuse box door and saw that one of the breakers was tripped. I flicked it back to the up position and headed back to the stove. “Awesome!,” I exclaimed, seeing the light back on. Resetting the temperature for the oven and turning on the burners I began to get the water hot so that I could get back to unclogging the sink. I started to get the dressing ingredients into a bowl with I looked back over to the stove and it was off again. “OH MY GOD!” I shouted. Back to the fuse box I went and flicked the switch again. I headed back to the kitchen and switched the stove back on. Watching, I stood there for about a minute and saw that the stove again shut off. “SHIT! How the hell am I supposed to deal with this?!” I got my flip phone out and tried calling Shannon at work. No answer. I was in full blown panic mode by this time and started to realize that cooking in this kitchen would be impossible. The only thing I could think of was to load up my car, drive to my house and finish everything there. An hour had already passed and I knew it was critical to get that bird back in a hot oven.
I wrapped up everything as best as I could and loaded up the car. I left the dirty dishes in the sink and tidied up a bit, leaving a note on the counter about what had happened in case Tom or Shannon came home. It was a 30 minute drive and I was racing against the clock...and bacteria growth.
Back in my kitchen, I finished up the cooking in about 3.5 hours and then drove everthing back, sealed in their disposable tins. The cleaned the baking dishes and roasting pan I had brought the food in at my place and put everything back into their cabinets at their place. As for the sink, it was still filled with backed up water. I decided to try to give it one last plunge and suddenly I heard the sound of GLUG GLUG GLUG. The water was draining! I waited until it was fully emptied and then started running hot tap water down the drain, while cleaning the rest of the dishes. By this time it was 4:30pm. What should have been a 4-5 hour job had turned into a 7-8 hour ordeal. Just as I had put the last of the dishes put away Shanon walked in. “OMG! It smelled SOOOO good in here!” she yelled from the front door, hanging up her coat. “Oh, hey there Shannon,” I replied. She walked into the kictehn, looking around and said, “So, how’d it go?” I turned to her, rather frazzled but still polite stating that it had been a bit of a nightmare. I told her that the oven had stopped working, that the sink was completely clogged and that I had just gotten back from cooking everything at my house. “OH NO!! I thought Tom had gotten the oven situation fixed!” she said, her face looking suprised and embarrased. “You mean how the the breaker keeps shutting off every time you turn on the oven?” I said. “Yes! He was supposed to have gotten an electrician over here because its been happeneing for months now. If you have the oven on over 300 and have more than two burners going it trips the breaker.” I thought to myself, if y’all knew you were having a chef over to use the oven, and you knew it wasnt working properly then WHY didnt you have it fixed before the chef got here?! “Well, I packed up everthing and took it all to my house to finish it. Oh, also, your sink had a massive clog. I couldnt do the dishes and so I had to look around for a plunger. I tried to heat up a pot of water to try to flush it out but the stove wasnt working. When I got back here with the food I gave it one last plunge and it declogged,” I said. “WOW! I am SOOOO sorry for all this! If I had come home and you werent here I wouldnt have known any of that happened! It’s so spotless and smells so good in here! Thank you for dealing with all that and again, I am so very sorry!” Shannon said. “Do you have the bill for me? I’ll just pay you now, “ she added.
At that time, I was charging by the hour at a rate of $50 per hour. When I handed her the bill totaling $400 plus groceries she didnt flinch. In fact, after she wrote the check and handed it to me, she pulled out $200 in cash from a drawer and said, “And please take this for going above and beyond to make sure we have a good Thanksgiving tomorrow.” As I took the money I asked her, “How are you going to reheat eveything tomorrow?” She looked at me and said, “I’m going to reach out to an elelctrician immediatly. Fingers crossed I can get someone over here tonight! And if not, well, Tom has NO IDEA what coming his way tonight!” I thought, Tom definitley is going to end up being the real turkey…
Until next week, thanks so much for following along on this journey!
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Thank you again,
- Shirlé
**All names, places and occupations have been changed to protect the identity of all clients.
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A Shout Out to this Weeks Paid Supporters:
A very special shout out to the following paid subscribers:
Robinlee Garber, Chef Lynn Warlick Wells, Jake Brokaw, Miyuki Furtado and Spanky Wilson, . A special shout out to new paid subscribers Myra Ruppe Schwartz, Lisa Deemer Sethi and Claudia L Sanders, Laurel Estabrooks and Leela Montella,! Thank you all soooo much for your support!
-Leela is a person I have known since kindergarten. She has made a lovely life for her and her family and I love watching her kids success stories.
-Myra is an old NC friend who I recently got to see here in beautiful Lisbon with her partner Scott. Maybe someday they will become expats in this fair land.
-Robinlee is a childhood friend and all around renaissance woman, living and playing music in Chicago.
-Chef Lynn is a fellow Personal Chef buddy and owner of Thyme Well Spent, Personal Chef Service, based out of Greensboro NC. When not cooking for clients or food styling for cookbooks, she can be found hobnobbing with tastemakers and culinary shakers all over the country.
-Jake and his wife Brigitte have long been huge supporters of my cooking and are also huge supporters of the arts in Baltimore, Maryland. Jake also has an Orthopedic practice I have had to use a few times.
-Miyuki has been a lifelong friend and bandmate of mine from days long past. He’s also one of the best fathers and husbands I know and has raised one of the coolest kids, his daughter Mino along with his sweet wife Tricia. Miyuki currently plays music in his Alt-Country band, Divining Rod. You can listen to Divining Rod out on all music platforms. (Chef Lynn, I think you would LOVE his music!)
-Spanky has been a huge supporter of my cooking from my NC days. When not fire fighting you might find Spanky hiking the Appalachian trail.
-Lisa has been in my life since the early 90’s. She’s a huge music supporter and a lover of all things delicious.
-Claudia is an old friend from my days in North Carolina. I met Claudia at a pig pull back in 1998, when I first moved to Chapel Hill. Since then, Claudia has started a successful Personal Chef business, Good Intentions Personal Chef Service in the Hillsborough area, as well as serving the Durham and Chapel Hill area.
-Laurel Estabrooks is a new expat friend, recently becoming a Portuguese resident. Parabens!! Someday I hope to meet up face to face. Muito Obrigada Laurel!!
Thank you all sooo much for supporting me in this endeavor. I am truly grateful for you.
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