One disaster of a dinner

I decided that since this was my last day of break before classes started, that I'd make a really good dinner, as I won't really have time for cooking again any time soon. You ever have one of those days where everything that can go wrong does? Yeah, it was one of those.

I had a pretty decent menu planned out. A standing rib roast, artichokes, bread, potatoes and key lime pie.

While the roast was in the oven, and the bread was rising on the counter, I got started on the pie. When it came time to get the limes, I went outside to the lime tree, jumped up to grab a lime off of a high branch, and stabbed the branch through my thumb. No biggie. I get the rest of the limes, and finish squeezing them, while trying to avoid getting lime juice in my new cut. Then I stepped out of the kitchen for a minute. When I came back, my dog jumped down from the counter with a guilty look on her face. A quick look around showed my bread dough was gone. I spent about 20 minutes feeding her peroxide and waiting for her to puke up the bread dough, before deciding to take her to the emergency vet for more powerful emetics. After about an hour at the e-vet, I came home and tried to finish up dinner.

I steamed the artichokes, and pulled the roast out of the oven. At this point I realize that the potatoes have been in there for way too long, thanks to the trip to the vet, and are now bricks. I baked the pie, topped it with meringue, then put it back in to broil for a couple minutes for the meringue to brown. I was carving the roast when I noticed a burning smell. I pull a burnt pie out of the oven, and into the freezer to cool (as the recipe instructed.) We eat dinner, which at this point consists of only the prime rib and artichokes (which were both fine.) I go to serve the pie, thinking that I could just peel the burnt meringue off. Even though I followed the recipe exactly, its soggy, curdled and inedible.

At this point, I can only laugh. How many things can get screwed up for one meal? I can understand burning one thing, but that was just pathetic. I'm not even dealing with the gigantic pile of dishes that resulted from this disaster until tomorrow.

I can only hope that this isn't a hint of things to come for the new year.