Tonight we are getting ready to leave for 5 days at Sun Lakes. One of the last things on my 'to do' list is to make potato salad. And let me tell you, I make a good one. This recipe has been handed down for 3 generations. I boil the potatoes. I boil the eggs. I chop the pickles (dill, NOT sweet!). I chop the black olives. As I'm chopping the cooled potatoes, daughter agrees to peel the eggs as long as she can eat one. Deal. I've dumped the pickles, olives and nearly all of the potatoes into my 14" Pyrex bowl. Back to the cutting board when BAM! The whole frickin' bowl EXPLODES! And I do mean EXPLODES! (Mom, remember the ham & oven explosion? This TOPS that!!) All my ingredients are sitting in a heap on my counter. The bowl is pretty much GONE! There are pieces of it EVERYWHERE. I stand there in a semi-catatonic state and repeat "Holy Shit!" over and over. Aleah, whose back had been towards me asks "what did you DO?!" I just stand there, dumbfounded.
I slowly come to the realization that the previous hour I've spent boiling, chopping and salivating are for not. There is no saving this. There are slivers, shards and chunks of Pyrex bowl EVERYWHERE. I yell to Chris "Hey, when there's a break in the Sounders' match you need to come see this." He comes up and immediately his ceramic engineering hat comes on. He proceeds to tell me just why and how the bowl "catastrophically failed" and how the stresses built up... meanwhile, I'm still coming to grips with the fact the potato salad that I've been looking forward to all week is ruined. I think my eyes start to water. I am getting PISSED! He generously offers to re-make it for me. I explain that I used up all the potatoes. He offers to go buy more. I just shake my head. He knows this is the time where "Mo needs to be left alone". As he retreats back to the t.v. he sweetly states that he will come back and clean up after the explosion, as soon as the match is over. I just grunt. I simply can't leave all this glass all over while the cats and kids are running around with no shoes on. Slowly I start to pick up the pieces, literally, until I feel somewhat confident no one will cut an artery.
A grin soon spreads across my face. I'm technically "on vacation" after all and it's only some potato salad. I wish I could watch a replay of the explosion though. And while I'm still bummed out about the outcome, it's darn near insignificant in the overall scheme of things. Just then Chris comes back up and sees that I've already cleaned the kitchen. "I knew you wouldn't listen to me". I'm sure he thought I was still pissed but I assured him I was "all done" and now just completely amazed by what happened to the bowl.
I'm off to the store to buy a nice, pre-packaged bag of coleslaw. But let this be a warning to you. If your Pyrex bowls are say, 15 years old, and you routinely use an electric mixer in them, subject them to hot and cold extremes and run them through the dishwasher, you may want to consider replacing them.
Happy cooking everyone! After this latest episode, I really am surprised anyone eats anything I make!
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