Sometimes Life Just Ain't Pretty

Wouldn't it be wonderful if every day was filled with success in whatever our particular endeavors were?  Well most of the time life just isn't a bowl of cherries and we just have to stumble along spittin out the pits.  So it goes with cooking at my home, some days things just seem to roll out of the oven in all their perfection and other days I just sit and wonder what the heck just happened.

A few weeks ago I had a last minute dinner for ten family members and a couple of visiting guests on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. The porch was in it's summer glory and I was feeling pretty sure of myself... never a good thing.  Everything needed to be made in larger quantities than I'm use to making for just my hubby and myself.  I was humming along quite nicely thank you very much as I took the upside down cake out of the oven.  I had made a double recipe in one of my 20" cake pans.  I had to make a makeshift cake plate out of two cookie sheets since I had done this on the spur of the moment and didn't have any cardboard rounds that large in my stash.  Tacky looking but it was family and they were only interested in the cake, not the presentation.  My hubby assisted me in getting the large pan flipped over onto the double cookie sheet and all was right with the world.

Fast forward a couple of hours and I had just pulled out a large jalapeño pepper cornbread made in the same 20" pan.  Again, no cardboard rounds to flip the lunker on to. Still basking in my success with the giant upside down cake I decided not to interrupt hubby's lawn mowing and  flip this beauty on to the cooling racks myself.  Success was not to be mine a second time.  As the dog had a feast with what landed on the floor I pitch a hissy fit complete with a few choice words.  She seemed to be unaffected by the whole spectacle. 

I was able to selvage enough of the cornbread and make a few squares to get us through the meal. Other than Maggie the dog no one knew exactly what disaster had taken place before the beautiful basket of cornbread was set on the buffet. It was certainly not a "Martha" meal but at the end of the day the family was well fed and we had spent a wonderful summer afternoon together.  That was the importance of the meal, not the cornbread disaster.