09 October 2011

By Myself!


This is what happens when someone who does too much engineering at work has to transport an almost full crock pot full of clam chowder by myself to a dinner across town.

Yes, the lid is lashed onto the pot—through the handles.

My dad would be so proud.

I suppose the first remarkable bit about it is that I made the clam chowder by myself. From scratch. And it turned out good. Well? Whichever. I'll ask my friend the retired English teacher. She'll know. I can never remember all of these darn little rules that have multiple exceptions. Like if you can count them is it fewer or less? I knew a week ago, and now it's gone.

But I was talking about soup. And dinner. And the harrowing drive from my house to the house where we had dinner.

I've never made a whole batch of this stuff before, so I had no idea that it would pretty much fill my crock pot. I had about half of an inch to spare at the top. My first thought, “Huh, that's going to spill for sure.”

So I grabbed a towel. Then I remembered the rope I had, and snatched that too. I lashed the lid to the crock pot handles, wrapped the cord through the handles as well, tucked the towel over my purse and left. I only had to set the darn thing down three times between the kitchen and the car. Getting the front door closed, the garage door open and the car door open were great, Herculean feats. The neighbors were probably laughing. I don't blame them.

The dip that I have to drive through to get from our parking lot into the road is rather rough. I'd never noticed how steep it was before I watched clam chowder (now sitting on the floor and surrounded by the towel) inch forward as the front wheels dipped into the road.

Only a little got on the inside of the lid. Whew. But every time I had to stop the same-ish thing happened. So I grabbed the long end of the rope and pulled the front of the crock pot up so the soup wouldn't slosh. I felt like I was holding onto the reins of a horse. Well, one horse with one hand.

Glad no one noticed that. People already think I'm strange.

And I am.

The soup was delicious!

4 comments:

Jordan said...

Never been a fan of the clam chowder. You need to have the set they have at the Melting Pot... they use some serious lid screwage on their pots to keep the oil from spilling out and scalding their customers.

Lisa Q said...

I just made clam chowder the other night too! Great job, I hadn't thought of making it in a crock pot before.

Charlie N. Holmberg said...

Glad it turned out!

You work as an engineer?

-Jo- said...

I'm not an engineer, but I basically engineer/do mechanical design on lights all day long.

I think I have too much personality to be an actual engineer. :)

Oh, Lisa, the crock pot was only the tool for transport. I made it on the stove.