Friday food

I know, I know. It's late in the day. But settle in, folks, because I've got a long tale for you. A tale in which our Plucky Heroine faces Great Adversity! Peril! Trauma! Blood! And recites poetry! All beginning with preparing food! But don't worry, being the Plucky kind of Heroine, she Perseveres and All Ends Well.

So. It started with this cast of characters:

 

Chicken, shredded carrots and cabbage, vinegar, soy sauce, and an onion.

It started easily enough. Our Plucky Heroine took her trusty kitchen knife, one of the many she recently took in for professional sharpening. She did that because they were all so dull that she was afraid one would slip and cut her if she didn't get them sharpened.

That, my friends, is known both as irony and as foreshadowing.

Slice slice slice went the shiny sharp knife through the onion, slice slice slice, until it was time for the last slice, and the greedy knife wasn't content to cut just the onion, but decided to take off part of our Plucky Heroine's little fingertip too.

Oh! she cried out (in a Plucky way, of course). My! That hurt! And bleed! Goodness! Like a geyser! She flew to the kitchen sink and turned on the tap for cold water, then stuck her finger under it. Not necessarily the best idea she'd ever had. Blood continued to gush, so she grabbed a paper towel and wound it tightly around the finger, then slowly pulled it off to see what size bandaid would be required.

But there was no flesh on the fingertip at all. Just a fountain of blood. Hmmm, thought the Plucky Heroine (OK, maybe she was borderline hyperventilating at this point), that doesn't look like a bandaid will fix it. I think I have to go to the doctor. And since the sight of all that blood rushing out of her little finger made her nervous, she grabbed another paper towel to cover it up.

But then she paused. Why, look, she thought--look at all that blood on the countertops. Apparently the geyser had cleared quite some distance as she had scampered across the kitchen. Does blood stain countertops? Plucky Heroine did not know, but she didn't want to find out the hard way, so, clutching a paper towel around the finger of blood, she used her other hand to wipe down the counter.

Ready for the doctor? Almost--but not yet. She looked at the other counter. And there were all those perishable foods sitting there, just waiting to, you know, perish! So those had to be put away too. And then finally Plucky Heroine was ready to get in her car and go to the doctor.

You know what's a good way to get quick service at Urgent Care? Show the receptionist your bloody paper towel and tell her you sliced off part of your fingertip. You'll get bumped right to the head of the line, in front of all the coughing children and the cranky old lady.

In no time at all, the gallant doctor was there and impressed with our Heroine's slicing skills. Stitches, he informed her. There would have to be stitches. OK, said Plucky Heroine, who had never had stitches and found that whole idea unnerving. Whatever, just stop the bleeding and stop the pain.

So the gallant doctor instructed the nurse to put a blood pressure cuff on the Heroine's arm to cut off the circulation so he could, you know, see through the blood and start stitching. You know what happens when there's no circulation to your arm? You lose all feeling, and your arm starts to look like a Swamp Thing.

You know what happens when you've been blogging too long? You sit at Urgent Care, watching your arm turn into Swamp Thing, and wish you had your camera so the nurse could take a picture.

She also remembered that there's a poem by Sylvia Plath called The Cut, which starts: "What a thrill--/My thumb instead of an onion" and goes on to say: "A celebreation, this is./Out of a gap/A million soldiers run,/Redcoats, every one."

But at last! No more bleeding! No more pain (thanks, Novocain)! Only this:

 

Just a nifty-difty splint-like gauze bandage (and an arm no longer looking like Swamp Thing). Which, Plucky Heroine did not realize until this morning, was already in the process of adhering so firmly to the wound that when she went back to the doctor this morning to have it checked, more Novocain had to be administered in order to get the gauze off her without making her cry, or throw up, or both. Again--Plucky Heroine loves her Novocain.

Obviously this experience exhausted Plucky Heroine, but nevertheless, home bloodied and beaten, she was still determined to make the damned chicken.

And she did.

Even if it was a challenge trying to cut another onion (because she certainly wasn't going to use the first one) with only one hand.

There it is. Crockpot Chicken Adobo. It was good. But was it good because it was good, or because it represented our Plucky Heroine's personal triumph over tragedy? That, my friends, is the question.

Comments

[deb]

OK - I'm back from the bathroom where I just threw up. Now, whawt happened?

[heather]

i did notice when i was a fruit cutter at my college cafeteria, that the new knives were somehow more likely to slip and cut someone than the dull ones. not quite sure how that works out in the scheme of things. the plucky herione certainly bore up well under the strain - i'd have left the perishables to perish :) hope your finger recovers. i'd say the recipe was all the better for the triumph over tragedy.

[Guinifer]

Not to mention the extra, added secret ingredient.

[cursingmama]

Oh dear plucky heroine! Not to imply that you are particularly old, but you sure did go a long time without having to experience the distinct displeasure of receiving stitches. I do hope that you're back to full knitting health soon.

[PainterWoman]

Glad you persevered! I did some slicing on my thumb a while back... but with a peel-back Crisco can lid. You'd think that would teach me NEVER to use anything with that much fat in it, but NO... I still like pastry. I was out of paper towels at the time and wrapped myself in what might have been the most germ infested kitchen dishtowel in the Southwest. (but they didn't give me a tetanus shot...).

[Connie]

ooooo - hope your finger heals quickly!

[kathy b]

Well Plucky Heroine good thing it wasn't an important knitting finger. I had a similar injury involving an avacado........
I was the first avacado of the day at the ER, but two bagel injuries had been in the day before......
you are funny.

[Ruth]

Hope it heals fast! I too am impressed that you remembered an appropriate Plath poem at the height of the drama (not to mention that you put the food away and drove yourself to the doctor!).

[Jess]

Way too much excitement. I'm glad your injury wasn't worse! And now, let's all repeat: keep your fingertips curled under while cutting.

Sharp knives are good but they cut deep. The wounds are cut more cleanly, though, so they tend to heal better.

I sliced my thumb open in cooking school (in the meatcutting class - I think we were butchering some beef) and had to get stitches. I still have a scar almost 11 years later.

[rudee]

It won't make your pinky stop throbbing, but I have given you an award over at my place.

[Heather]

Oh, no! Poor you!!!

[kate]

I live with a man who works with knives for a living. So I've seen my share of deep slices and missing fingertips and cauterizing and stitches. Makes me want to pass out every time! (I am not so Plucky.)

Sarah R summed it up best: Plucky, Lucky and a little Yucky!

[rudee]

Poor baby. I'd have been satisfied with just a recipe today, but you provided so much more. How in the world did you catch your pinky under the knife? Were you holding the onion as though you were holding a teacup at a fancy high tea social?

Aren't you pleased you cleaned up the blood before you sought medical attention? Wet blood is so much easier to clean than when it's dry.

[Cheryl S.]

Oh, how awful! I'm cringing in sympathetic pain and horror. Heal quickly!

[bezzie]

Hee hee! Glad to hear that alls well that ends well. I really love the little pinky bandage too!

[laurie]

ok, perhaps this shouldn't have made me laugh--i'm not really a callous person, after all--but it did make me laugh.

not just the fact that you put the food away and wiped everything down before heading out. but this graf:

You know what's a good way to get quick service at Urgent Care? Show the receptionist your bloody paper towel and tell her you sliced off part of your fingertip. You'll get bumped right to the head of the line, in front of all the coughing children and the cranky old lady.

nothing sums up Urgent Care quite so well as that.

[Ann]

Oh, I feel your pain. It's a hazard of the occupation so I've cut (and burned) myself many times. Be very careful with newly sharpened knives!! Hope the chicken was good enough to make up for the trauma.

[Carole]

Oh no! I'm so sorry this happened. Hope it's feeling better today.

[debra]

You are indeed plucky, O Heroine. What ever happened to your fingertip?

[Chris]

Whoa. I was starting to be afeared that there was going to be a fingertip reattaching story... But impressive that you've never had stitches before! And I almost hurt myself laughing at the "you know you've been blogging too long when..." bit. Too true!

[kmkat]

Pluck, pluck, PLUCKY, indeed! Only a plucky one would wipe up the blood AND put away the perishables before she DROVE HERSELF to Urgent Care.

Whew, I am so sorry for your pain but glad it was only the tip of your finger. (The chicken looks tasty.)

[Miss T]

Oh Lord. What is it with onions? This is the exact same thing I did, except I didn't feel like sitting in emergency so I just stuck about a million bandaids on it.

[kristi and otis]

OY! Knives and rotary cutters are my nemesis...

is it wrong that I have done it so many times that I remove my own and other's stitches as well as the idea I am pretty sure I can put them in too...with a sock chibi needle and some sterilized laceweight...

[Angie]

Damn chicken or onion! Entertaining but shocking post. :D Heal quickly and feel better soon.

[Sarah R]

Oooh, plucky indeed. And lucky too! (It could have been worse.) And just a little yucky. (All that bloooooooooood.)