I’ll con­fess right off that this is not my most embar­rass­ing culi­nary moment, because I actu­al­ly air the worst ones in my cook­books. Like ​“Brisket: A Love Sto­ry,” ​“Chick­en Soup: A Dis­as­ter Sto­ry,” and ​“Choco­late Mousse: A Scary Sto­ry.” Although all could be sim­ply clas­si­fied as epic kitchen tragedies. Dun­no why exact­ly I always tell all. Must be that I feel tak­ing the humil­i­a­tion to an uber-pub­lic lev­el will serve as penance of some kind. But that’s just a guess, after all I am a cook­book author, not a psychotherapist.

You see, I was not a ​“born cook.” (But boy was I born to eat!) So when I had to cook up my very first Shab­bat meal as a mar­ried lady, every course was a dif­fer­ent form of dis­as­ter. You wouldn’t think there are so many ways to ruin good food. 

My pota­to kugel was a per­fect exam­ple. Sit­ting at our Shab­bat table was Hub­by, my mom­my, my grand­dad­dy and my dear sis. They had all come to ​“help” this inex­pe­ri­enced cook, not to snick­er. At least that’s what they said. When it came time to serve the kugel, even I knew that it didn’t even resem­ble one. It looked more like an off-col­or giant lat­ka that had been run over by a truck. I cried, and I decid­ed not to serve it. 

But I couldn’t fool Hub­by. He knew I had labored over it because pota­to kugel is one of his favorite Shab­bat foods. So he asked about it. I shook my head, wide-eyed. ​“Come, on, I know you pre­pared it,” he prod­ded gen­tly. I shook my head again, search­ing his face des­per­ate­ly for under­stand­ing. Final­ly, star­ing at my shoes, I whis­pered that I was too embar­rassed to bring it out. He sweet­ly, calm­ly and lov­ing­ly told me that I should nev­er be embar­rassed about my food, that I had worked hard on it for him and he want­ed to have his new wife’s first pota­to kugel. (He scored extra points from the fam­i­ly with that speech.) So head hung, I brought it out. A sup­pressed gasp gripped the table. Hub­by smiled weak­ly. Every­one else looked over their shoul­ders at the wall, the ceil­ing, the floor. But he gal­lant­ly cut him­self a piece and sent it down, as I watched in hor­ror. Ever the noble prince, he actu­al­ly ate anoth­er piece. Then he announced his ver­dict. ​“Per­fect,” he paused, ​“for a Passover cake!” 

That’s his secret: when I want to cry, he makes me laugh. When I want to scream, he makes me laugh. So I laughed through my tears, every­one relaxed, and the kugel mys­te­ri­ous­ly dis­ap­peared from the table. 

Check back all week for more from Jamie Geller.