day 5: off is in the middle

Several years ago my church did a church-wide 40 day fast. I was familiar with the idea of fasting, growing up my dad had done several 40 day fasts, but I myself had never done fasting to that extent before. After prayerfully considering it, I felt God leading me to do a portion of the fast all liquid. Cocky me, I was like, “how hard could this be?! I love smoothies, so I’ll be fine.”

Unfortunately, your body starts to go a little wack on you—blood sugar levels start skyrocketing, you start envisioning people as food and then you just start randomly smelling certain foods that you used to enjoy. For me, it was Babe’s Chicken, more specifically, the biscuits. For you out-of- towners, Babe’s is hands down the best place to get fried chicken and the fluffiest biscuits you’ll ever, EVER put in your mouth. Oh my, my mouth just started watering…focus Ashley, focus!

So, in order to keep your cravings down, you start to get really creative with the blender. My philosophy was, “hey, if I can suck it down a straw, then it’s legal.” One night in particular I made a big pot of stew, but I was SO freaking hungry before I started the process, that I was very, VERY impatient in the cooking process. By nature I’m not very patient anyway, and I’m most definitely not one of those girls that find cooking relaxing, so mix that with 15 days of no food—Lawd have mercy…it wasn’t pretty.

Earlier, while at the store picking up items for the stew, I had also bought a new blender (this is important to know—you’ll see in a minute). Now, by this time, my friends have all gathered in the kitchen with me, each making their own things, so it was quite a tight space. The stew is FINALLY done, and I go to pour it into the blender. Allyson (sister) and Brittney (friend) each say at different times, “you know, it probably needs to cool before you put it in the blender.” Me: “Naw, it’ll be fine. Besides, I’m STARVING, so I don’t care.” Famous last words.

I pour the stew in the blender steaming, piping hot and I stick the lid on top, which has now created this intense amount of trapped steam. I place my hand on top of the lid and use the other hand to hit blend. Within a matter of seconds, the lid goes flying off the top (due to the trapped steam) and piping hot stew starts flying everywhere! Have I mentioned I have an all white kitchen?!! Problem is, because I’m not familiar with this blender, I am hitting every button imaginable to make this thing stop—blend, ice crusher, puree, mix, everything BUT the off button and the thing keeps spewing more and more! Over all the commotion, Brittney’s voice comes screaming from behind me, “OFF IS IN THE MIDDLE…OFF IS IN THE MIDDLE!!!!” I finally find the “off is in the middle” button and get the thing to shut off. It looked like a horrific and graphic murder had just taken place in my kitchen. My white cabinets were covered in red mush, my white floor was covered in red mush and WE were most definitely covered in red mush. We just fell to the floor in a messy heap and laughed.

It took days, months, years until I finally stopped finding chunks of stew in every nook and cranny of my kitchen. And to this day, I still have a scar on my hand from the piping hot stew that exploded in my kitchen that serves as a lovely reminder. Hey…be sure you become familiar with your blender BEFORE use…

“she’s a pretty girl” in the kitchen…