The Test Kitchen of Emily Meier

For those of you that know me, you know that I have a wonderful older sister, Melissa. She’s a little over two years older than me, but she got married earlier than I did. So she’s been honing what I like to call wife skills.

Not only is she having a baby boy in October (!!!!!!!!!!), but she also manages to work a demanding full-time job as the Director of Catering at a fancy hotel, sew for her Etsy shop, and keep up a cooking blog that gets 10,000 hits a day. Let’s just say that I’ve maintained my sense of confidence by being the cute little chunky one (see photo below).

Needless to say, she leaves BIG (and many) shoes to fill. I’ve always looked up to her because she’s always one step ahead of me. Lately, this involves bothering her mercilessly about cooking/recipes/etc. My mom is an incredible cook and passed along her recipes to us, and now Melis is the Martha Stewart that researches and creates all of these fancy meals.

Last night I was texting her about my latest cooking-related mishaps, and she told me that I should write a blog titled “The Test Kitchen of Emily Meier” as a spoof of hers, The Test Kitchen of Melissa Fallis.

So here we go… advice straight from the kitchen of Emily Meier:

My arch nemesis

1) Never grab an Oxo container from the top unless you are completely certain that it sealed. If you do, and it’s not sealed, you might just dump sugar all over your pantry. And it might just fall down (hour-glass style) through all of the cracks and you can hear it hitting the plastic bags you store in the bottom. This is based on personal experience from this morning (mess yet to be cleaned up).

2) There IS a difference between confectioners sugar and regular sugar, and your baked good might turn out a little wrong if you confuse the two (confectioners = fancy name for POWDERED). Rookie mistake a few years ago.

3) You cannot freeze lettuce. No matter how tempting it might seem if you only use lettuce little bits at a time, don’t try it.

4) You should not stir fry with Pam. Olive oil only, people. It should be a clue to you if you have to open the windows because your house gets smoky whenever you try to cook one meal (pre-marriage mistake).

5) Always check to make sure you have your wallet before you do your grocery shopping for the week (yup, that was last night).

6) For you city folks, never buy more than you can carry. Your paper Trader Joe’s bags might just rip, and you might be awkwardly on a busy sidewalk in downtown Brooklyn with your groceries dangerously in limbo.

7) Mashing chicken with a fork first is a great way to shred it if you’re too impatient to do the with-the-grain slow method.

Jokes aside, I’d say I’m a pretty decent cook. I try to make a variety of meals, family favorites and new recipes. I think I’m just a little clumsy or something. Who knows.

This is where the magic happens.

Time to go make chocolate chip cheesecake bars! Here’s to hoping that there won’t be a second installment of this post… this afternoon.