It’s been five weeks and cooking has lost its excitement. It has become something I just have to do in order to survive. I decided to bring back the excitement in the kitchen and create my own cooking game show.
The concept is pretty simple: Come up with a food challenge, then complete it.
For my first challenge, I decided to make three meals I’ve never made before in one day. As if that wasn’t enough of a challenge, I decided to cook them without looking at any recipes.
Breakfast is typically a pretty easy meal for me. It requires very few ingredients and is done quickly. On this particular morning, I wanted an egg-and-cheese breakfast sandwich. Usually when I make this meal, I crack two eggs in a pan and scramble them up. Then, I form them into a compact circle and add the cheese on top to lock in the shape. Though that is delicious, I knew it wasn’t exactly the fancy way to make an egg sandwich.
It was time to learn how to fry an egg.
I cracked two eggs into the pan and waited. I assumed the next step was to flip the egg and waited some more. After I did that to both eggs, I could still see the yolk was liquid inside the egg. Realizing my mistake, I put the eggs back to the sunny-side-up state and waited longer before flipping them back. Voila! It worked. I tossed some cheese on the eggs and threw them on a toasted bagel. It was perfection.
Challenge one, part one: complete.
For my next meal, I was desperately craving a Shively Dining Hall sub. But without a meal plan, I was going to have to settle for making it myself. I used to get a chicken salad sandwich on a plain bagel, and I was determined to recreate it.
I knew two things that were in chicken salad: chicken and mayonnaise. Wanting to properly complete the challenge, I refused to look up what other ingredients I would need. I boiled two eggs and chopped them up. After mixing the mayo, shredded chicken and eggs together, I put it on a bagel, added some cheese and threw it in the oven.
After a few minutes I pulled out the sandwich and got ready to eat it. I then realized this had turned into more of an egg salad sandwich, which I absolutely hate. I crossed my fingers and hoped that I was wrong.
I wasn’t. It was definitely not chicken salad, and it was completely disgusting.
Wanting to know the error of my ways, I looked up a recipe to see what else I had forgotten. First, I put two eggs instead of one, which is what made it more like an egg salad. I also didn’t put any celery, onion or lettuce in it, which affected the outcome of my awful second meal.
Challenge one, part two: failure.
By the time dinner rolled around, my stomach was still upset from lunch and I really didn’t want to try and guess other ingredients to attempt to make the perfect meal. I made something I knew I couldn’t mess up: I boiled some ravioli, heated up some Ragu and ate it for dinner.
Challenge one, part three: no attempt.
As if struggling through the kitchen wasn’t bad enough, the fact that I lost my own made-up game is just plain pathetic.
Mesha Baylis-Blalock is an aspiring cook, a journalism student and a columnist for The Post. What should she try to cook next? Email her at mb345109@ohiou.edu.
