…and THAT is Why Cooking is Evil

Well, at least it tasted good.

To attempt to accomplish my goals of saving money and eating healthier, I’ve taken it upon myself to make, rather than buy, many food items. Yes, I am trying my hand at cooking! (God help me, and all of those who get to eat my concoctions. But I digress.).

For example, the vegan staple: hummus.

For those who don’t know, hummus is quite easy to make (and very tasty!). I recently ventured into the kitchen to throw together a new batch. I take the simple approach to prepare my hummus: throw everything into the food processor. Process. Refrigerate. Eat. Done. Nothing fancy, just the basic ingredients.

I started with chickpeas: into the food processor. Tahini, check. Olive oil, check. Lemon juice, check. Garlic, check. I tasted the hummus and realized that something was missing. Ah, yes. I forgot to add the salt and pepper. So I reached over to grab the salt and pepper mills … and in the process, hit the very large, brand new olive oil bottle with my elbow.

It broke. Shattered. Olive oil was everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

The counter. The floor. Me. And the best part: dripping down between the stove and the counter, in that little open crevice.

Fuck. (repeat 10 times. Then, repeat 10 more times).

After cleaning up the counter and the floor (an effort in and of itself), I debated what to do about the stove. Could I leave the olive oil down there? Would it cook? Smell? Cause damage? After cursing the fact that my husband doesn’t live with me anymore so I couldn’t make him deal with it, I finally decided to pull out the oven and clean it up.

This, my friends, was NASTY.

Have you ever wondered what kind of stuff slips down those little crevices between the counter and the oven? What kind of food and other objects make their way under the oven from the floor? Let’s just say, it ain’t pretty — and this is before it is swimming in a sea of olive oil.

But wait! It gets better. My two furry helpers decided to come take a look and oversee my clean-up efforts. Of course what I mean by this is, once the oven was out, the two of them ran behind it to explore this new, uncharted territory. Shockingly, cats don’t like olive oil on their paws. So what did they do? Well they proceeded to run their little olive oil-coated selves around the apartment. On the carpet. The couch. My bed. Little olive oil paw prints … everywhere.

I dumped baking soda all over the spill to try to absorb the oil (which I thought was a rather brilliant idea, thank you very much). But this brilliance was short-lived. Out comes the Dyson to vacuum up the clumpy, oily baking soda mush. (well what else was I supposed to do??). This … shockingly … clogged the vacuum. Which I then took apart and cleaned out, covering myself and the kitchen in baking soda, olive oil, and other carpet nasties.

Disgusting.

All of this for homemade hummus.

Screw the “save money and eat better” goals. I’m ordering takeout.