This weekend, we had our annual St. Patrick's Day dinner. I got up Saturday morning, put the corned beef in the crock-pot, and then turned to the dessert--Strawberry and Bailey's Fool. Turns out, I was the fool.
I carefully washed and dried the eight million strawberries needed for the recipe, reserving the nicest ones for the garnish. I painstakingly hulled each and every one before dropping it into the blender. I hit the puree button on my shiny new blender and...nothing. I tried again. Still nothing. I stabbed it for a third time as though that might magically make a difference (It does in the fairy tales). Shockingly, it didn't.
I then performed ten minutes worth of useless maneuvers to try and puree the @#*@! strawberries. I detached and reattached the blender from the base the same magic three times (it worked so well with the button pushing). I carried the blender across the kitchen to another outlet and repeated the button pushing and unscrewing exercises again, four times each this time around. Still nothing.
I tested the outlet by dragging out another appliance and plugging it in only to discover that wasn't the problem when the beaters nearly tore my fingers off since they had gotten bumped to the "on" position in the drawer (Note to self. Never trust household appliances. Did I learn nothing from all those Stephen King movies?)
Just as I was considering mashing the blender to a pulp along with the berries, I realized there was one other thing I could try...pushing the "on" button before selecting "puree". Duh. (My old blender was much simpler to work. Puree was on, but tragically, it died before its time in a senseless homemade peanut butter incident.)
Once the mechanical glitch was worked out, it was on to the next problem. Too many strawberries, not enough blade.
Wishing I had decided on a less labor intensive dessert like homemade ice cream made from a cow I had personally milked, I emptied out the blender of all but a few berries and punched in the proper launch sequence. Two berries got half-heartedly crushed.
Enough was enough. I decided to get tough with the blender and jammed my spatula (green in honor of the day) down into the pathetic little slush puddle. Slowly, the blade was worked free and it began pulverizing berries with reckless abandon.
Elated to be moving on to the next step, I put on my protective gear and braved the beaters again to whip up my last cup of heavy cream. I added the final half cup of our Bailey's Irish Cream and half of my precious strawberry puree and beat them all together along with some sugar. Yum.
The end was in sight. Using a pastry bag and spouted measuring cup, I carefully alternated layers of the puree and the cream into chilled champagne glasses (Now I was remembering why I only make this dessert once a year.). Finally though, after all the aggravation, I was done, and had eight beautiful parfaits.
Happily, I set about washing up, and that is when I discovered it. My green spatula was missing a not-so-small chunk.
Frantically, I peered into the bottom of the blender hoping against hope it would somehow be there, intact. Desperately, I groped around the sink trying to find the plastic amid the bubbles. Hopelessly, I spooned through the remaining mixtures straining to see that chunk of green. Sadly, the luck of the Irish was not with me.
As I poured all my lovely desserts down the drain, I saw what I should have seen before...tiny flecks of green plastic spatula which, while festive, were not edible.
And so it was back to square one as well as back to the grocery store, and the liquor store, and maybe...the bakery.
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