Kitchen Fails


Typically, I can make a decent loaf of zucchini bread. I add walnuts and call it healthy. So when I pulled the freshly baked loaf out of the oven (after it somehow needed an extra 20 minutes of bake time) it appeared done. I did the toothpick test to be sure. Yep, it came out clean. I placed the loaf on the rack to cool. When I came back to remove it from the pan, it had sunk in the middle. Never a hopeful sign.

I took a large knife and cut through. Doughy in the middle. How was that even possible after over-baking it by 20 minutes? I slapped it back in the loaf pan and baked it another 20 minutes. It stubbornly refused to finish baking.


Okay then, fine. Plan 3. I took my serrated knife and sliced it up, doughy middles and all. Placed the slices on a cookie sheet and threw it back in the oven for another 20 minutes.


I tapped them with my finger. Yes indeed those zucchini bread slices seemed to have the texture of toasted croutons. Oh well.


One of Tom’s awesome qualities is his ability to eat kitchen rejects. As a kid, he’d eat the burned toast. He grabbed a slice of petrified zucchini bread and exclaimed it was the best ever.


He snagged another piece on his way out the door, declaring, “Whatever you did to the bread is awesome—can you always make it this way?”


The moral of the story is that sometimes new delights emerge from what was considered a failure.


So keep trying, not just in the kitchen, but in all the half-baked situations of life. Some things just need more time to become what you never imagined could be so good.


photo by Brett Jordan/Unsplash


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