Deep Fried Mouse, Anyone?

     As a wedding present in 1998 my husband Brian and I received a deep fryer.  I never specifically asked for one on our registry so I was surprised we got one.  I was a new wife who was not very talented with cooking in the kitchen.  I welcomed any gadget that might help create something edible and different to eat at the dinner table.  I was excited to try it out. 

This is exactly what my deep fryer looked like.

     We never had a deep fryer growing up.  My mom would toss french fries or tater tots in the oven instead.  We never complained.  We ate them and enjoyed it.   It was what we knew.   I read the instructions of our deep fryer tried it with french fries.  I was impressed on how crispy and tasty they turned out to be. Even the color was that of a golden hue.  It was a lot better than fries coming out of the oven that is limp and squishy and of pale yellow in color.  I used it quite often instead of the stove and it didn't heat the whole house up which was nice in the summer time.  I had my special metal slotted spoon to help dish out the fries as I placed it in a paper towel lined bowl.  I felt that my cooking skills were really something special with my new deep fryer. 

     In 2004 we moved up to Osceola County from Allegan.  Of course my precious deep fryer came with us.  It has been used much in the 5+ years that I had had it and it started to show.  Part of the flimsy lid melted one time as I set it too close to the hot deep fryer.  The lid still did it's job for the most part when it wasn't in use.  Or so I thought.

     One summer evening Brian and I were fixing hot dogs and tater tots for dinner.  I fired up the deep fryer.  It wasn't long after that a foul smell perfumed the area.  We couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from.  We began to think we picked up a bad batch of hot dogs from the store as we were boiling them.  We would walk over to the store and smell over the boiling pot but the smell wasn't coming from there.  We walked in circles around our kitchen with our noses up in the air trying to locate them foul order but we just couldn't do it.  It seemed like it was from all over.  We tried to grin and bare it the best we could. 

     I put in a handful of tater tots.  In a few minutes I pulled them out and dumped the golden tots into the glass serving bowl.  I tossed another handful of frozen tots into the hot oil.  The hot oil crackled and snapped as it cooked the tater tots.  I grabbed for my silver slotted spoon and fished out a few tots.  I stuck my spoon in again and recovered some more tots that were hiding under the oil.  As I pulled out the spoon I looked down at the tots.  Lying across my metal spoon was a dead mouse.  The little bits of fur on it was soggy from the oil.  I gasped as I stared down at this deceased little mouse trying to think of how it met its demise.  He must of been hiding out in my cupboard and probably ran across the top of my deep fryer and slipped through the side of the lid and eventually drowned in the oil.  It didn't look like it happened that long ago as he wasn't too badly decayed. 

     I walked over to Brian and showed him my mouse discovery.  He wasn't as interested in seeing the deep fried mouse as I was.  Right away he started dry heaving.  Trying not to vomit Brian said nauseated,   "Get....rid....of....that....MOUSE!"

     Looking around the kitchen I had no where put the hot deep fried mouse.  I couldn't toss him into the garbage because the oil on him would melt the bag.  I didn't want to toss him in with the already cooked tater tots.  It just didn't seem right.  I wasn't sure how to dispose of him.   Brian couldn't handle the sight of the mouse on the spoon anymore and he quickly grabbed it out of my hand and tossed it back into the deep fryer.  He unplugged it and wrapped a towel around the deep fryer so he could pick it up without burning himself.  He yelled for the door to be opened.  In a mad dash he ran out of the house holding the deep fryer, complete with mouse, and ran it across our field and tossed the whole deep fryer as far as he could. 

     Window's were quickly opened in the house and dinner was cancelled.  Just looking at the frozen bag of tater tots left an ill feeling in our stomachs.  Even though the tots in the bag were good, mentally we couldn't eat it even if we did put them in the oven.  We tossed everything out.  I knew we would never use our deep fryer again.  The memory of the mouse was too horrible to try to reuse it.  I was crushed because I really liked my deep fryer.  It was hard for us to eat anything deep fried for a long time.  The word deep fried reminded us of that darn mouse. 

     I think maybe a year or two later my husband purchased me another deep fryer.  This one is far better than the old one.  The lid wasn't of flimsy plastic but of a hard lid where a person has to pop a button to open it up.  It was larger and bigger than the old one and it had temperature control along with a timer.  I was eager to put it to use.  It took us a while to deep fry tater tots again but we used it for french fries, egg rolls, corndogs and homemade chicken nuggets.  This one is surely mouse proof. 

The Box Lied

     It was early Fall of 1996.  I was in my second half of my 19th year.  My husband and I just acquired our first place.  Adult life was suddenly handed over to me whether I was ready or not.  What older people fail to tell younger people is that relationships need tweaking.  Not everything falls into place perfectly.  The husband has his ideas of how life should be and the wife has her ideas and not all the time do they match.  Disappointments and arguments soon follow.  That is not always bad - it is a part of learning each other and growing together as a couple.

     I was never a susie homemaker type of person.  As a teen I was always out working or taking part of some after-school activity or just hanging around with friends.  Home was for sleeping and grabbing a meal here and there.  When there was cooking being done by my mom I was far from it.  It just never interested me.  As a young teen I remember thinking Why cook when there are so many resturants around.  When I met my husband I worked as a waitress at a resturant.  I could serve food but I just couldn't prepare it.  I could fix up smaller things - popcorn, a bowl of cereal, scrambled eggs (not fried or hard boiled), box mix cake, tv dinners and pot pies.  If it pretty much came prepackage I could do it.  My husband must of thought that all women just knew how to cook.  It was somehow in our DNA.  The women in his life were all decent cooks.  His stepmom even owned a resturant!  Women and food just naturally went together.  My working in a resturant must of made him think that I enjoyed being in the kitchen.  Nope!  I proved him wrong about women and the kitchen.  

     One evening I went to prepare the meal.  One perk of being a wife of an over-the-road truck driver was that I didn't have to cook very often.  Or cook to impress that is.  I opened up a box of mac-n-cheese and prepared it just as the directions said.  I put a little in a bowl for me (I just like eating mine out of a bowl) and a little in a bowl for him.  He looks down at the cheesie noodles, "What else are we having with it?" 

     Having WITH it?!  The idea never crossed my mind!  I blankly looked at him and told him this was dinner.  He went on to inform me that mac-n-cheese is not a dinner, it is a side dish!  I thought for a moment.  Mac-n-cheese sounded good.  I didn't know what else he wanted.  I held up the empty box, "It is TOO a dinner.  See," I show him the box, "It says so right here!"  I even pointed to the word dinner.

 

     I don't really remember what happened next if he went off to his mom's for some real food or if he went out to eat.  I remember sitting back and enjoying my bowl of mac-n-cheese shocked that someone just couldn't like it as it was.  Then I looked at the big picture.  I HAD to learn how to cook.  I am going to have to fix dinners for the rest of my life and find something to please my husband with!  The thought of trying to learn to cook made my stomach turn, either that or I put too much butter in with the mac-n-cheese.  I couldn't tell which. 

     The next week I tried cooking up ham steaks for us using a cookbook.  400 degrees and an hour later they were a little crispy.  Again, my husband was disappointed as he tried to fork out the charred piece of what was once a ham steak from the pan.  I think the Lord must of heard his plea for help because a few moments later his friend and his wife came by and wondered if we wanted to join them for pizza at a local resturant.  Finally, something edible!

     Around the same time I had a friend from college come over to help me fix a dinner for my husband.  She had to help me learn to brown hamburger.  I have never done it before.  Something as simple as browning hamburger was a clueless process to me years ago.  I was so impressed by how easy it was.  My mom has browned hamburger a zillion times but I never watched her do it.  I never even gave the matter thought until then.  I didn't care how it was done.  I just wanted the finished product. 

     I have come a long way since then.  Meatloaf took me about 10 times to get that right.  Chicken - well, I have perfected it but I did it so wrong so many times that my husband cringes when I mention about fixing it.  Now everything is like second nature.  Even my mom is impressed that make my own granola and homemade biscuits and jellies.  I am no Chef Gordon Ramsey by any means but a lot more of my meals impress my husband.  Mararoni and cheese is no longer a dinner at our house.  For lunch? well...that is another story.