And Now a Visit From Chef Gordon Ramsey

More fun in dreamland!

Last night I dreamed that I was a contestant on Hell's Kitchen. The weird part was that it all took place at my Uncle & Aunt's house. They weren't there, but my cousins from Hide & Seek were. While the it was on the same property, it was a completely different house. I only know it was in the same place because I could see the front yard from the kitchen window. Ramsey was upstairs in another kitchen with a bunch of contestants. The contest had him taking us one by one into this tiny little pantry-kitchen about 6x6. It had a stove lining one wall and a sink lining the opposite wall, leaving very little room for Gordon and one other person. Things were crazy and everyone else was tense, but I was just relaxed and waiting for my turn.

Since I wasn't up for a while, I decided to go downstairs to the main kitchen to get coffee. It was early in the morning and being the nice person that I am, I asked everyone else if they would like me to bring them a cup. I popped my head into the pantry/kitchen and asked Gordon if he would like some as well. He actually looked touched.

Then he decided to throw me another test and asked me to make him breakfast. Instead of telling me what he wanted, he started speaking French and gave me a list of ingredients. I told him I wouldn't be able to remember everything by the time I got downstairs. I was also desperately looking around for paper and pencil to write it all down when he looked at me and said, "Look at me. Now, concentrate Love, you can do this, yeah?" This was followed by a second list of ingredients this time in a French accent. As I went downstairs, I realized that the first list was in English but with the accent and weird phrasing I hadn't recognized all the ingredients. I started repeating the list so that I wouldn't forget them. Potatoes, pencil onions, sausage and oregano.

When I got to the downstairs kitchen, I was horrified to see that the kitchen was a mess and everything I needed had already been used. There had been another challenge taking place in this kitchen. It had been led by Gordon's very yummy sous chef, Scott Liebfried. I looked around for something I could use. There was a prep bowl of green onions, sausage meatballs and a pan of cooked hashbrowns. I figured that was just about everything he had asked for so I would go from there. E and T were sitting at the table in the breakfast nook eating the remains of the challenge. I asked them if they thought there were any other onions around. They told me to help myself to whatever was in the fridge and then they left for work. I opened the refrigerator to see if I could find white onion. I found more raw sausage meat balls and patties.

I thought about using them, but they had been mixed with red and green peppers. I didn't have time to pick them out and I didn't think that would go with the oregano. I saw a lot of red onions that looked like they had been cut into rings for hamburgers. I rejected those out of hand because I wouldn't be able to cook them long enough to without overcooking the rest. There were a bunch of ends of white and yellow onions scattered throughout the fridge but they were all moldy. As I opened the vegetable crisper and saw the green onions, it hit me that they were shaped like pencils if you thought of the white part as an eraser. Pencil onions must have been a French description of green onions.

Realizing I had everything I needed I went back to the stove. The first thing I did was look through the sausage balls for all the undercooked ones. Apparently in every contest someone invariably undercooks the meal. I was starting to prep everything to cook when Scott came over and asked what I was doing. When I explained the situation to him, he jumped in and offered to help. As long as he only followed my directions, it wasn't cheating for him to do the cooking. It occurred to me at this point in the dream that Gordon and Scott were nicer to me than everyone else because I stirred up less drama. I asked him to cut away the outsides of both the hashbrowns and the sausage balls. I wanted to use the insides as they would be less likely to get overcooked.

I started looking for oregano on the spice shelf; I kept finding rosemary instead. I decided to use fresh oregano when it appeared before me and started worrying about how I was going to present the dish when it was finished. I also realized that I would have to somehow infuse the fresh oregano into the already cooked product in order for it to have enough flavor. I cut up slices of lemon and threw them into a pot of water to boil with the oregano and set a vegetable steamer over the top with the hashbrowns and sausage. Scott complimented me on my ingeniousness but questioned the consistency of the final product. I assured him that this would keep everything from drying out as it heated up and I would fry it all together before serving it to make it brown and crispy.

When everything was ready to go, I started looking for the dried oregano again. I thought it was ridiculous that a kitchen wouldn't have any. That is when I woke up.

Now I ask you, what kitchen product could I not advertise in this already twisted dream?