"It's a bad thing" or how I came to loathe Martha Stewart

Last night in a strange twist of fate my husband decided to cook Sunday dinner.  Truthfully I was the slightest bit worried that this endeavor may end in the emergency room, but he was pretty insistent on taking the reins.  So against my better judgement I relinquished control over my command center, or as normal people call it, the kitchen.  Follow up on what he cooked on Recipe Friday!

In the meantime please allow me to entertain you with how I played sous chef for the evening that ended like this:

So as my husband was getting together his mis en place...I know, I've taught him well...I was helping to slather a crusty herbed baguette with some melted butter and then planned to smother it in cheese.  I lobbed off a sizable chunk of butter and grabbed the nearest dish to zap it in the microwave...a dish that would forever change the fate of Sunday Dinner...a seemingly harmless dish that looked like this...

duh duh duh...

These little babies are from the Martha Stewart collection at Macy's.  I received them as a somewhat uninspired Valentine's Day gift along with a turkey baster...hey I never said my husband was the romantic sort.  I have used these little prep bowls and their larger cousin nesting bowls countless times for food prep.  I have not however EVER popped one of these suckers into the microwave up until last evening.  I'm not sure what possessed me to do it.  Maybe I was in a tailspin watching my mighty kitchen fall to the seemingly effortless powers of Husband the Conquerer, maybe it was the three glasses of champagne I'd imbibed while waiting for dinner, either way I wasn't thinking straight...and that my friends was the beginning of the end.

You see these little Martha Stewart bowls are made of melamine, a super duper durable plastic that is wonderful for clumsy people like me.  Not so great in the microwave...BECAUSE IT TURNS TO NAPALM!  My glob of butter and said fire bowl were only in the microwave for 60 seconds, count it, 60 seconds.  I naturally reached in the micro bare handed to grab the bowl when much to my chagrin my right hand ring finger firmly adhered to the side of the bowl.. I quickly set the bowl on the countertop and peeled my finger away leaving in it's wake a large purple welt were a once perfectly normal fingerprint had been.  Ok maybe I'm slightly exaggerating...but seriously people DO NOT...I repeat...DO NOT...microwave melamine.  Save yourself the trouble and learn from my mistake.

But this isn't where our story ends, oh no, there is so much more that Martha Stewart has to pay for.  I get burned professionally.  If this domestic goddess wants to take me down she's gonna have to come at me with everything she's got...oh and she did...

Now don't be fooled by her squeaky clean "it's a good thing" exterior, because when you least expect it under the guise of helpfulness she will destroy your sink!  It's true, scout's honor!  After I was finished with the death bowl I went to rinse it off in the sink before sending it to the dishwasher, and that's when it all went terribly wrong.  The bowl slipped from my hand and in an instant had firmly lodged itself smack dab in the middle of my drain.  Oh Martha, how clever you are making a product the exact size as a standard drain.  Where is your research and development team Martha...are they too busy mining their own salts for a lavender scented bath scrub to pay attention to such a crucial detail?!?!  

I tried with all my might to release the bowl of doom from my sink and with every attempt it just lodged itself further into the drain.  I tried a pairing knife to pry it free...no luck.  I tried boiling hot soapy water to perhaps slip it loose...to no avail.  I tried banging on the underside of my sink with some extreme brute force...nothing.  I schlepped out a toilet plunger to suck it out...for pete sake this darn thing was stuck.  The only option at this point was to take apart the garbage disposal to release it from within.  So that is exactly what my husband did after our delicious meal.  There was a veritable deluge of water and a lot of grunting.  But within a few moments the bowl was freed and my husband stood up hands on hips, in what I can only describe as his superman pose, with a really broad grin, and said "that's right...whose your big strong man?"  

And so Martha, although I would like to thank you for the chuckle at my husband's remarks, I'd really prefer to send you a bill for the hour of my life I spent waging war against your domestic empire of destruction.  Oh and you owe me a paella pan...because as you can see from the picture Martha, my husband decided to use it as a water bucket.