Fixin' Leaks and Leeks

The Fixin’ Leaks and Leeks kitchen, over the years, has squirmed with live shrimp, bubbled with casseroles of outlandishly cheesy proportions, and ridden out the “flournado” storm of pie-making attempts. Time and again, I swear that the kitchen appliances have looked at me as if to say, “What in the *!!## are you doing and why?” Once I’ve explained to the toaster, the oven, the dishwasher, and the refrigerator that I don’t answer to them and that they’re not the “boss of me,” I also remind them that I’m just “makin’ meals” and that some people in the blogosphere might want to see them. Someone might actually want to risk life and limb and make one of the dishes I’ve prepared. Then, the toaster tells me to “quit being so sassy,” so I shove a pastry treat down its mouth and tell it, “oh, it’s on” because, after nearly two full years and a little over 100 posts, someone has actually made a recipe of mine and told me about it on my blog. That blogger deserves an award! So, ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner: Mydangblog! The writer behind this blog wins a new award that I’m pretty sure I have no authority to create, but I’m doing it anyway: “The Made My Dish Award.”

Here’s how it all went down:

I posted a recipe for Pizza Pasta Panic last week and the fantastically talented and super funny blogger from Mydangblog wrote the following in the comments section: “I tried this last night and it was so delicious! Thanks!”

I then responded, “OMG! You may be the first person to have actually tried any of my recipes before–that I know of. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to create a new special blogger’s award for this week’s post–and you are the recipient. There will be three easy questions to answer and you don’t have to answer them at all, if you don’t want to–or you can go totally off base, which I love. I have no authority at all to create new blogging awards, but will I get into any “real” trouble? Let’s find out!”

Here was her response: “OK cool!”

So now, I need to create rules and questions for the winner to answer because that’s how it’s done. First of all, this award should go to anyone who, “makes your recipe/dish/craft/project and tells you about it in the comments section of your blog. A picture of the finished product would serve as air-tight proof that you actually made the recipe/dish/craft/project, but it is not really necessary.”

The winner must answer the following questions. I’ll supply my own answers as well this time:

1) When you leave a restaurant, do you look for a bowl of mints or candies?

I totally do. I also “rate” restaurants based on the jar of goodies left on the host/greeter’s station. If there are no jars of candies/mints—or just toothpicks—that restaurant gets a 0 rating.

2) What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?

I went to an authentic Japanese restaurant and Nate encouraged me to order giant sea snails. “We should do something outside of our comfort zone,” he said. I agreed. Well, the snails were gigantic. They were the biggest snails I’d ever seen in my life and there were like six of them on the plate. They were also served cold and we washed them down with warm sake. I ate three of them just to make sure I didn’t like them. I didn’t like them. To this day, I can’t look at a snail the same way anymore.

3) What is a candy that should be invented/sold?

Little soup bowls of chocolate that could be melted in the microwave and eaten with a chocolate spoon. The varieties should be: smooth/regular and crispy with crisped rice bits inside.

The “rules” then are pretty straightforward, as you can see. You don’t even have to be a blogger to receive the award. You don’t even have to use the “logo” I created for this award, which is simply a bunch of plastic food on a plate. They’re just leftovers from my days of teaching the food unit in Spanish. In those days, I’d hold up a plastic chicken and say, “pollo” and the students would repeat the word in Spanish while asking themselves, “Is this really a college level class?” Then, I’d serve them real food at the end of the semester and provide recipes in Spanish, but no one would leave comments on my blog because I didn’t have a blog then. I do now—and I’m as happy as a giant plastic clam that despite the tomfoolery at Fixin’ Leaks and Leeks, there is proof that some of the things I make can be repeated at home with some measure of success. Cheers!