Gather your friends close and your enemies closer: last night a strange and tragic event befell me, and I’m only glad I’m alive to tell the tale.

I like food. I also like to cook, which dovetails nicely. Yesterday, I decided to go all out, and make an uncomplicated yet time consuming dinner, on a Tuesday, no less. I happened to have four large supremes of chicken in the fridge – nothing to do with Diana Ross or the high court, but rather the cut that features the breast with skin and half the wing bone. Very nice. I found a great recipe that also called for Camargue red rice and dried morel mushrooms, which I happened to have, as well as fresh mushrooms, celery, onion, garlic, wine and chicken stock. The recipe is here, should you decide to venture where I so miserable perished. It’s relatively easy, as I mentioned, but it takes about an hour to put together, and another hour and a half to cook in the oven, all in one big casserole dish.

I got that far. Sure, it was late, and the kids were starving, but it was going to be worth it. John, I should mention, was out at hockey, thereby sparing himself the horror that was to be visited upon his family. Because a half-hour into the baking process, I heard a horrible cracking sound. I peeked into the oven, and the tempered glass lid I had put on the casserole had shattered into a thousand pieces, all of which were still in place. Like a car windshield. Or my heart. I took out the casserole, and carefully, with gloves, removed the smashed cover and put it on a cookie sheet, where it immediately collapsed into a pile of rubble. The chicken, however, appeared to be unscathed. I examined it minutely, and could see nothing glinting on the surface, so I put it back in with a cast iron lid on it and hoped for the best.

Half an hour later, the boys gathered at the table, forks and knives in hand, and I served it up. Oh, I told them what had happened. I’m not a monster. But I assured them that it was fine, it was great, it was delicious, and so it was. Heavenly, in fact, although just a tad gritty. I got about two bites into mine before I spat out a tooth sized chunk of tempered glass, which, while certainly decorative, was not going to go down easily. It all had to be thrown out, of course. Every last fragrant, earthy, oddly glittering mouthful. I was devastated.

The boys were too, but also starving, so they ordered Mexican, which came very late into the evening, but was delicious, and not even potentially lethal. They seemed content, until Ronan told me he had a sharp pain in his chest, and Aidan said he wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe his upper palate was bleeding. Such comedians. They should really turn pro. I went to bed, where I lay staring at the ceiling, convinced that we were all going to die in our sleep of internal lacerations. Apparently we survived, but I don’t think I can make this recipe. It has left a bad – and sharp – taste in the mouth.

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