Caltrops: The Teen Years

One of society's guilty pleasures seems to be failure, specifically when it happens to other people. Oh sure it's great to watch people succeed at their endeavors, and we'll even applaud them as long as it doesn't happen too often, but nothing really compares to that self-satisfying triumphant pleasure that comes from seeing someone else fail, preferably in a spectacular, explosive manner.

You're all in luck. Recently I realized I've reached what I call the teenager stage of cooking, and it's hysterically funny and terrifying all at once. I know everything, I'm never wrong, I'm completely invincible in the kitchen. Recipes are for other people (as are mistakes) but I have the freedom to pick and choose my directions on a whim. It's quite a rush.

It's also not without its disastrous moments:

Wonton Wrappers These do, in fact, dry out. You are not immune. You're not special. If you don't treat them like phyllo dough with the damp towel routine, they will crack and crumble and they won't fold. And then, and then, they'll take their last bit of residual moisture and stick themselves together in the freezer where they'll sit, ready to crumble into worthless shards as soon as you try to break them apart to cook. Whereas, if you just use the damn towel, they'll be foldable, and they won't glue themselves together in the freezer.

Coarsely Ground Corn Meal, Finely Ground Corn Meal, And Pizza Dough
Your pizza dough recipe probably calls for finely ground cornmeal. Mine does. Do not, in a fit of frustration, decide that coarse will work just fine unless you are prepared to spend an hour with a mortar and pestle to make your own. Especially, do not give up on the mortar and pestle plan after 15 minutes, deciding that it's "good enough." It's not. Your pizza dough will end up sticky and gritty, you'll have to add a bunch more flour, you won't actually taste the corn meal, and your pizza dough will be dense. It's horrible.

Oh. And don't skimp on the salt. 2 tsp distributed through a recipe's worth of dough never hurt anyone.

Speaking of Pizza Dough...
If the weather is warm and you've been buried in winter for a few months, you will find that everything tastes better grilled. Veggies, burgers, apples, leftovers, and yes, even pizza. You'll find that when you shape your crusts, the first attempt will end up lumpy, uneven, and full of holes. Most people would dismiss such a blunder as not worth worrying about, since the crust will end up covered in toppings and no one will notice. This is true, but to so casually gloss over the situation is to discard a valuable opportunity for a grilling object lesson.

You will need:

• 1 mangled pizza crust (sacrificial)
• 1 hot grill
• 1 set of incomplete crust grilling instructions. These should include the amount of charcoal to use, the exact configuration of the charcoal, and the start of the sentence detailing the amount of time each side should be grilled. The actual time should be omitted. For best results, do not refer to these instructions until after the charcoal has been configured incorrectly, lit, and allowed to burn down to coals.
• 1 inexperienced kitchen helper

Under the guise of a learning experience, put your kitchen helper in charge of the pizza. Throw it on the grill, explain that only one side needs to be done, and leave to go prepare pizza toppings. After about 5 minutes, you'll be rewarded by the sight of your kitchen helper flailing his arms in a blind panic as he looks for a grill spatula. Upon securing the spatula, he'll race back out to the grill, holding his prize high over his head like a weapon as he charges through the living room. Stay calm, maybe raise an eyebrow, and go back to cutting up pizza vegetables.

Your devoted kitchen helper will reappear a few minutes later looking like a sad puppy with a crispy, somewhat charred pizza crust and a plaintive whine of, "It's burnt to poop."