The Cooking Group

My roommate Colleen started a cooking group of which she, two of her coworkers, and I are members. This week is my week to cook for the group, and I had chosen Wednesday and Shepherd's Pie. Knowing that Tuesday evening is already booked, and Wednesday I would get home too late to start, I planned to make everything tonight and then just bake it on Wednesday after work. According to schedule, I drove to work today so I could pick up a few groceries on the way home.

I would like to preface the cooking group experience by saying that when I arrived at work this morning after a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving weekend, death was all around. All the potted plants were on their last limb (so to speak), and there was the very pungeant and distinct odor of a critter (probably one of those colossal street rats) who had come to work to die over the weekend. After going through half a bottle of Febreeze, two separate children kicked me today. By 6:00 I was not to be reckoned with.

Little did I know that the entire city of Chicago with a day job does their grocery shopping on Monday nights. And as if the amount of people and grocery carts wasn't enough, the employees decided that tonight during "rush hour" would be a good time to restock shelves! We were in single file lines going both directions down the aisles, and every time I stopped to examine a product, the people behind me sighed, rolled their eyes, and stamped their feet impatiently. I could feel my brow creasing, my eyes narrowing, and my lips pooching out as my face sunk deeper and deeper into an authentic bah-humbug scowl. I finally made a dive for the meat section after circling it 3-4 times only to find that there was no ground beef left on the shelf! I sacrificed for ground turkey and high-tailed it out of there (as fast as you can high-tail when you have to wait in the check-out line for 20 minutes).

Back at the ranch I had to figure out how to quickly thaw the frozen pound of ground beef that I did have. Floating it in luke warm water was not working fast enough, so I ventured the old microwave method. However, being the technical wonder that I am, the microwave didn't heed my 30% power command, and 4 minutes into the defrost, the edges were cooked and the middle was still frozen. Meanwhile I began chopping the onions and actually had to leave the room twice to wash my face because my eyes were stinging so much.

I overcooked the meat, undercooked the onions, and forgot to mix everything in the skillet before putting it in the casserole dish. Suddenly it occurred to me that cooking groups were probably designed for people who are good at cooking. At my lowest point, I called Mom to wonder aloud about what I had been thinking. If it's possible, I may actually be kicked out of the cooking group come Wednesday. Please send me strong vibes of savory filling and fluffy mashed potatoes.