Don't Try This at Home

Last night was a good night. I whipped out my neglected Japanese cooking tutorial (which apparently they have in English in Europe. C'mon! Bring it out in America tooooo!) and made some potato salad. I'm really picky when it comes to my potato salad, there are really only about 3 or 4 kinds in the world that I will eat. But Japanese potato salad is one of them. And now I can say I have made it from scratch. It has potatoes, mayo (J-mayo, since it does taste a little different) ham, hardboiled eggs, cucumber and onion.

So now I've made 4 dishes with my tutorial. And I have to say that I always make it through the recipe with good results. But that it regularly pwns me along the way. I'm not a bad cook. Really. But watching me while I play this game is a lot like an exercise in 'what not to do.' Like when I realize that the tutorial assumed I'd already hardboiled my eggs. Or when I was trying to cut the onion into tinier pieces. Or when I realized I no longer had a potato masher (I swear I had one when I left Dayton). The tutorial had you mashing with a thick wooden stick, so I actually ended up mashing my potatoes with the handle of a cleaver.

No Anns were harmed in the making of this potato salad. But it had more to do with the grace of god than anything.