Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Chicken Cordon Bleu

We had the Sister Missionaries over yesterday for dinner. I made Chicken Cordon Bleu with a mustard cream bechamel (okay, that's just french for a white sauce, but sometimes I like to pretend I'm fancy and Julia Child), with a red potato mash and haricot vert (the skinny green beans, so they're too sold under a french name), along with a salad and tangy buttermilk ranch dressing. Of course, I made the real, fancy kind, where you pound out the chicken breasts flat and then roll them up around Swiss cheese and a slice of ham.

While rolling up these little bundles of meat and cheese yumminess, I realized that we had no toothpicks to actually keep them closed. Avram had the genius idea of using metal sewing pins, and then pulling them out before serving. I quickly fetched my handy sewing tomato pincushion, extracted 8 pins and stuck them through the edges of the four chicken cordon bleus. Then we dredged them in flour, egg and breadcrumbs (yes, in that order; the recipe said so.) By this point for the life of me I couldn't make out any pins, so we decided to pull them out after cooking, and went ahead and stuck them in the oven.

Fast forward an hour.

The four of us plus Lydia are sitting around the table, halfway into our Chicken Cordon Bleus when Avram suddenly exclaims, "The pins!" We had completely forgotten about them. The two sister missionaries found their respective pins and pulled them out, and Avram did as well. I couldn't find mine, though. We looked and looked, and I slowly ate the rest of my Cordon Bleu, but to no avail. The pins were gone forever, and we knew where they had gone, too.

I spent the rest of the night swallowing convulsively, emotionally feeling, if not physically, the pins that were stuck in my throat. I definitely swallowed them, which was embarrassing if nothing else, since apparently I eat like I'm Godzilla and don't chew my food.

They lengths I go through to give the sister missionaries who go stateside weird stories about food to take home from their missions.

5 comments:

  1. Okay, the chicken cordon bleu sounds amazing. Minus the pins. THAT sounds DANGEROUS!!! I hope you don't die!

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  2. The pins undoubtedly feel out before. There is a story like this. I'll have to tell you on the phone.

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  3. *dies laughing*

    I have eaten bread off your living room floor, and I have eaten wool out of Carol V's spinning, buy you have me beat at eating a pin. Long live barely-controlled chaos! And here's to getting enough, um, steel in your diet.

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  4. oh r pookie! Only you...and lily. She ate a tack...or and a broken christmas tree light, amoung many other strange and dangerouse things. I fear calling poisen control any more because they probobly keep a record of how many times you call and for what. and unless you knew my lily, it sounds like i am a horrible mother who does not watch her kid. Nut lily was ok. Everything she's eating has come out the other end. fear not, you'll be ok. next time send avram to buy tooth picks.

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  5. ihope you are okay! i worry they puncture something important on the way through. anwyays you are still so fabulous as cooking and describing your foods. I want to come eat at the thora cafe.

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