Betty Flopper

As a self-proclaimed Betty Crocker, I made my first cooking 'flop' last night.

I am so embarrassed, it could not have happened at a more humiliating location!

I got back to my host house late last night (9:45 PM), because of staying at the computer lab so late and writing on this here blog, and then taking the tram home. Of all nights, *last* night was the night the tram turned off of its route to change drivers, setting it behind schedule.

I rolled into the door (after having to stop outside where I still get reception to call my parents on the other side of the world, to let them know that I do indeed know how to walk and got from the tram stop to my apartment safely). I was hungry. Starvin' Marvin style!

Mamma Meetz (my host mom; this is what I secretly call her) was on the phone gabbing with one of her daughters, and I felt bad for coming home so late. She usually is insistent on cooking me supper. She and Pappa Meetz spoil me soooooooooooo badly here! So, to handle my own tardiness, I slipped into the kitchen and decided to whip up an egg sandwich for myself.

I had the bread all toasted, the slices of cheese and slices of salami all ready to go...all I needed was the two fried eggs. I fired up the electric stove top, got out a Mamma Meetz skillet, and proceeded to take care of the eggs.

The first side of an egg is always easy to fry: you just crack the shell, let the egg seep into the skillet, and the bottom layers turn white.


The second side is always the problem child: you have to try to flip the egg in the skillet, to cook the soupy side. Physics always teases you, though, because of the soupy-stuff that always runs off with gravity when you try to flip the whole apparatus.

I tried to do this cool skillet + sandwich plate flippy trick I caught Mamma Meetz doing the other day, and overall, I was successful.


Minus a little bit of that soupy-stuff that slipped out and dribbled onto the red-hot electric burner on the stove.

The soupy-stuff fried onto the stovetop instantaneously, with the scent of burned food right behind it.

I felt mortified; I knew Mamma Meetz had just cleaned the kitchen that day while I was at school, because the kitchen looked spotless! And here I had just gone and fried some yellow shit on her black stove top. :(

I was too afraid to spatula it off (yes, I do believe I just used 'spatula' as a verb), because I didn't want the burner to melt the plastic spatula, adding even more to the foul burning smell.

So, I modestly finished frying my two eggs, plowed down my sandwich, and cracked open the window to let some of the burn-stench flow out into the cold. I sat the whole time, scowling at the stove top, waiting for it to cool.

Annnnnnnnd go figure, Mamma Meetz finishes her phone call when I'm about 2 minutes into my banana I'm eating as a side dish, and comes strolling into the kitchen to check on me. Her nose speaks before her mouth does, and she makes a beeline to the plastic spatula to clean up the stove top while casually talking to me about how my day went.

Suuuure, the spatula didn't melt on her at all!!!

I apologized to her profusely, and tried to explain to her what happened. However, a girl that speaks very very broken German, trying to describe the aerobics of a freaking egg's guts on a stove top, is very hard to do. No matter how professional your charade skills are.

I don't think she was mad, because she finished cleaning up the stove top, and then went back into her living room to watch one of her favorite TV shows. It wasn't long before I heard her guffawing at her television set.

Meanwhile, I still scowled at that damn stove top, wondering why I had to have a cooking blooper on the ONE time I might try to use another woman's kitchen.

Gaaaaah!