Made by e: Out of the Ashes Comes the Phoenix

I had one of my most embarrassing moments two weeks ago. Picture it: a Relief Society Seder dinner. Dinner organizers asked for volunteers to bring a couple of dishes, including a potato kugel. (Potato kugel is a traditional Jewish dish served at Passover time at the Seder dinner. Think Jewish funeral potatoes, kind of.) They gave us a recipe that seemed pretty straight-forward, so I went for it.

The recipe calls for pounds and pounds of grated potatoes. The day of the event, I decide to assemble the dish during Rhett's nap (about 5 hours before dinner), so that I can spend afternoon time with all of my guys rather than cooking. Everything seemed to go okay during assembly, and the dish went covered into the fridge, and then later into the oven.

But let me tell you that it came out of the oven as the most disgusting thing I've ever made. Ever. It was purple. Seriously people, purple. But knowing that the RS committee is counting on me, I decide to bring it in its purple state anyway.

I slid it onto the church's kitchen counter, hoping nobody noticed that the hideous purple mess came from me. No one seemed to. I wasn't the only one bringing kugel, and, thankfully, the committee put a couple of slices of each of the kugels onto a plate, and gave each table a "kugel sampler." Therefore, no one table was stuck with my purple puke. Just pieces of purple puke. When my own table received their kugel sampler, you better believe I made no such claim to that wreck. Someone even asked about the one that was purple, but I chuckled along with everyone else. I also didn't touch it, like everyone else.

At the end of the dinner, I slinked back into the kitchen to retrieve my hopefully-empty dish. Of course there was still some in it. I was simply mortified to have to grab that pan and have it attached to me. I hurried to the car and laughed the whole way home. It really was absolutely terrible. Of course I should have taken a picture, but didn't.

However, from this horrible experience came a silver lining: it inspired me to create a casserole carrier, like one my mom had when I was growing up. In case I ever make anything so gross again, I want something cute to hide it. In addition to using my mom's carrier as inspiration, I saw some online and created my own pattern (with the help of my product designer, Chuck). I love it. Now I just need to create another hideous creation so that I can hide it in this.