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December 1st, 2009

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Guest Blogger – Curtis and His Deconstructed Paella

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

Good Morning, Darlings!

Today we have a guest blogger – my hilarious blogging (and real life) friend Curtis from over at Complete Waste of Time. If you remember, Curtis and I made carrot curd together. If that piqued your interest, his cautionary tale of deconstructed cuisine will slay you. I laughed until my sides hurt upon reading his story.

I think you will, too.

Enjoy!

xoxo, Patti

Hungry and Waiting for Paella

Hungry and Waiting for Paella

Paella Calamity

St. Augustine defined pride as: love of one’s own excellence. Pride I have in excess. Imagination I also have in excess. Cooking technique I do not. Don’t get me wrong, I cook quite well. But every so often I decide to leave the safety of my tried and true abilities for the culinary unknown. When I’m at my best, I do this at the most inopportune time.
This whole fiasco begins with an episode of Bravo’s Top Chef series. They did an episode based around deconstruction. Each chef chose a classical dish and had to deconstruct it as part of the competition. The losing dish was a horrid failing of paella.

Seeing this I decide that I can do better than the trained chef on television and will make it myself. But for what occasion? Paella is a pretty big dish and you don’t just make it on a Wednesday night. And considering I’ve never made it before, I let my imagination run wild with the possibilities. The occasion presented itself in a trip to a cabin in Blue Ridge, Ga. According to the website, the cabin had a well appointed kitchen with every pot and pan needed except a paella pan. But I’m deconstructing so I wouldn’t need it.

Failure or Disaster? Keep reading ->