Helter Skelter, the Sequel

If you haven't noticed, the last couple of posts have been blood themed. This post won't deviate from that, so if you are squimish, you may want to refrain from reading. Dave, that means you, you big wuss.

The title of this post is Helter Skelter, the Sequel. First, I must fill you in on the original Helter Skelter so that you are adequately educated to understand the second Helter Skelter scenario.

Ready? O-K.

On Sundays, I cook. I don't just cook for my family, I cook for our neighbors and friends, so on any given Sunday, I'm feeding between 8-10 people. Sometime after last Thanksgiving, my neighbor went to our local grocer's one-day-only meat sale and came home with a trunk full of meat. Hamburger, pork, steaks, prime rib...and a whole lot of it. He had at least five prime rib roasts. Well, the guys got the brilliant idea that we were not only going to have a prime rib roast for Sunday dinner, we were going to deep fry that prime rib roast. Enter the turkey fryer.

So it's early December and out here in Ohio, it gets cold. The guys were working feverishly outside to get the $60 worth of peanut oil up to the proper cooking temperature. It took a long time, but it got there - or so they thought. That bad boy went in the oil and was only supposed to fry for about 30-35 minutes. All proud and happy, they brought the blazing, crackling slab of meat into my kitchen.

I asked: "Hey, did you guys check the internal temperature before pulling it out?"
Manbeasts: "Nah, we cooked it long enough. Look at it, it looks great."
Me: "Um, ok, but don't you think..."
Manbeasts: "It's fine, it's fine...let it sit for a sec and then we'll cut it."

So the meat rested. I got out my heavy duty knife and waited.

When the time came to carve this masterpiece, the manbeasts puffed up, waiting for the women to praise their hunting and killing skills. There was no hunting, nor killing, but all the testosterone in the room was clouding their better judgement. As I began to slice through the crusted outer layer, horror overcame the room.

Blood raw. The outside was done to perfection, but the inside, well, it hadn't even cooked. After grilling the manbeasts over oil temperature, they finally confessed that the oil was about 25 degrees less than it should have been. So they get the bright idea to "throw it back in."

To everyone out there who ever wants to deep fry a prime rib: Do not throw it back into the oil, especially after it's been sliced open. Why? Read on.

After another 20 minutes of frying, they brought it back in. The outside was now burnt to a blackened crisp, and when we cut back into it, it was still completely raw. Now what do we do? We decided to slice it and put it under the broiler in my oven. This prime rib was huge, each slice took up an entire plate. As I was cutting this thing, bloody meat juice was all over my kitchen as we were scrambling to find enough plates to fit all this meat on. It was like Helter Skelter had just taken place in my kitchen. At one point, I stopped, washed my hands, turned to my friends and said, "Ok guys, you're on your own. I'm going to pass out from all this blood." I was lightheaded and woozy.

I went upstairs, showered the Rick Baker nightmare off my person and laid down. I came downstairs a short while later and everyone was attempting to gnaw on their meat. The broiler had done the trick, but because the manbeasts decided to "throw it back in", the oil seaped into the meat. You could have taken a match to your cut of prime rib and it would have burned for three hours. I refused to even try it. My female friends were green. The manbeasts were doing their best to choke it down, God forbid they had to admit that they goofed up. And my kitchen was still bloody. All in all, it was an experience - an expensive experience - and one we still joke about today.

Here is where the Sequel comes in. So Wednesday evening, after giving blood at work and throwing up in Pav's trashcan, I picked up Joonya from his after school care and we went home. My husband had Open House that night so I was in single mother mode. I had removed that tourniquet that was my bandage on my right arm because it was cutting off my circulation. As I was preparing a gourmet dinner of grilled cheese and Pringles, I felt something warm against my arm. I looked down and not only was I bleeding, I was gushing. Blood was covering my arm and dripping all over the floor. I sprung a leak.

I called for Joonya, my 7-year old, and requested that he go find Mom some cotton balls. I grabbed a kitchen towel and used it to stop the bleeding. Just then, Cody, the neighbor from next door walks in with Ryan, his one year old, in his arms. He couldn't have come at a better time. Cody was calm while I was swaying back and forth and hanging on to the kitchen counter, trying not to pass out. He instructed Joonya, again, to find some cotton balls while he went to the bathroom and retrieved some bandaids. I rinsed off my arm and Cody proceeded to bandage me back up. Joonya, in the meantime, had located the cotton balls and proceeded to place them all over the kitchen, covering up each droplet of blood. I just love the innocence of kids. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with those cotton balls but he was going to make sure I couldn't see the blood. It looked like it had hailed in my kitchen.

I laid down for a few minutes and collected myself while Joonya tended to me, making sure I was still coherent. I laughed at the cotton balls that were now stuck to the kitchen floor. It was an eventful night. When I finally reached a level of normalcy, which was no small feat, mind you, Joonya and I read books on sharks and watched the Sandlot.

It was a good day, despite all the blood. Like I said before, funny stuff finds me.