Crap Cakes... a.k.a. Adventures in Cooking

MS was going to be at work late geting her contact sheets in order for her photography class. So i eagerly ask "What would you like me to make for dinner." We were gonna have Meg, and I didnt want to stop and get fast food for her, so I wanted to actually make something. MS has had great success with the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, so I decided to hit their website and find a recipe. We decided that crab cakes would be a good idea, Scrappy loves crab, and so do we. I found a recipe that seemed simple enough... should've realized then it was gonna be a problem.

The recipe only had two steps. Simple I thought. I'll be able to handle Meg, her homework, making dinner, feeding her and then giving her a bath and still having time to read story. Yeah... not so much. As I started adding ingredients I started to realize it didnt seem wet enough. It didnt seem like everything was binding together. It all started to go downhill fast. Meg was starting to get really hungry as well, Math homework was an adventure (she just doesn't understand the values of money yet), luckily i bought extra crab, and was able to feed her that alone while i continued prepping. She loves it, And American Idol was already on, so she was good.

As I start to put everything into the frying pan, I start to get really upset. They just dont seem to be sticking together, so its like crab mush in the frying pan. I have 8 up in the pan, which actually for all the drama dont turn out so bad. The second batch starts to get much worse. Its starting to get much later, so I start to worry about getting Meg in for a bath. So I figure I could drop the second batch in the pan while I start to get her bath ready. Bad idea. I guess because the pan was already very hot, the second batch got pretty burnt. I finished giving Meg a bath, and then dove into the third batch. The third batch was a little well done, but not burnt. So, all in all, about 12 of the 20 crab cakes were fine... no more than that.

I was already in a way bad mood over not being able to mix this, make cakes or get them into the frying pan. MS always makes cooking look so effortless. So I felt the need to punish myself and eat the really burnt crab cakes ( I hate wasting food), plus I wanted MS to only see the pretty good crab cakes. My one saving grace in the whole evening was MS sitting on the couch when she got home and saying "Baby, these are good, they are very tasty"... her saying that made me happiier than she knows, I still felt crappy though because I felt like I couldnt get these crab cakes right.

The next day, my buddy who went to culinary school tells me "Dude, what were you thinking, crab cakes are a very delicate mixture... not for a novice" Oh well. Lesson learned. I promise I will attempt this again, preferably after some more practice.