Recently I invited my brother to come over for dinner and shockingly, I was the person doing the cooking.
In our house, cooking is typically a blue job because a family cannot live on perogies and breakfast-for-dinner alone. I was cooking chicken paprikash, which is a traditional Hungarian dish that my mother-in-law taught me how make over the phone using less-than-precise instructions. The recipe was dictated to me using measurements I have never used (decagrams and decalitres) and handy approximations like "Add some water and mix it until it looks right."
Anyway, after years of tinkering, chicken paprikash and nokedli (paprika chicken and sptzle) is one meal that I can comfortably make for company.
Except when I slice my finger open while dicing an onion.
Panic ensued as I not-too-calmly rushed to the bathroom to clean and bandage my finger. I bandaged the wound tightly to try and help it stop bleeding and the blood immediately oozed through the Band-Aid. I whimpered throughout the remainder of the meal prep, bravely soldiering on and breathing through the pain. I was a hero. Then I somehow managed to cut a different finger on a sour cream container.
My husband and my brother looked at me with identical expressions of disbelief as I related what happened and there may have been some sniggering in my direction as I rushed off to bandage the sour cream cut finger.
The second wound also bled profusely and required copious bandages that may or may not have had Hello Kitty designs on them. At this point, I transferred the responsibility for cooking this meal back at my husband who greatly improved the flavour of the meal and managed to get the food to the table without further injury.
The gentle teasing that occurred throughout the meal was warranted because I looked like I was an extra on ER with bloody bandages after you have been treated by the doctors.
There is a funny trope that occurs on television and in movies where a person has been bandaged up after receiving a horrible injury. Their wounds are covered by great swathes of snowy-white gauze secured by white tape. The gauze is easily an inch thick (who has that much gauze?) and clearly could mop up a lot of blood and fluid except on the outside of every bandaged wound in TV land is some bright, red blood. All bandages on TV are covered with blood on the outside of the bandage. If I was shot and the doctors discharged me while wearing dirty, bloodstained bandages, I would be annoyed. Likely I would also be annoyed because I had been shot but you get my point. The only reason there is blood on the outside of your bandage is if you are still bleeding. Luckily, I stopped bleeding eventually and I was able to change to cleaner bandaids so it did not look like I was a poorly-looked after extra on television.
Next time, someone else can make dinner - it is far too dangerous for me.
