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Kitchen Crime Makes The Yuletide Bright

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By DANIEL RUTH, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 20, 2007

As suspects go, this caper was easier to solve than: Who shot Lee Harvey Oswald?

"Who ate my Christmas cookies," a distressed Sunflower of Sparta moaned Sunday morning as she inspected the crime scene - a half-empty platter of Yuletide goodies she had prepared late into the previous evening.

The baked goods were supposed - notice the emphasis on "supposed" - to be her contribution to a neighborhood cookie exchange.

Obviously Lard Butt the aging doyenne golden retriever was ruled out. She has reached a point in her life where jumping up to kitchen counters is not an option, which led us quickly to the prime suspect - the Daughter of Lucifer, the cunning young goldendoodle, who obviously had the means, motive and opportunity to launch a raid on the cookies.

A career criminal, Satan's Handmaiden expressed no remorse for boosting the cookies, which by our best count accounted for at least a third, or perhaps two dozen of the Bombshell of the Balkans' hard work.

Canine Chicanery
Adding insult to the canine chicanery was the fact the cookie recipe had called for the spice cardamom, which is more expensive than cocaine.

So it has gone in the kitchen this holiday season - hardly a Martha Stewart moment.

You know things are drifting toward culinary disaster when you hear yourself saying to your spouse: "I can fix this. Get me a hammer," while trying to cook ... grape leaves.

You know things are really about to enter Food Network hell when your spouse actually goes and gets the hammer.

Dolmades are a Greek delicacy: grape leaves stuffed with ground sirloin, lamb, rice and onion. They are also a very labor-intensive dish to prepare, requiring first a jar of Greek grape leaves.

But the leaves were so tightly packed in the jar, the Honeysuckle of Saks was growing increasingly frustrated as she vainly struggled to pry them out.

What Could Go Wrong?

"I can fix this. Get me a hammer," I offered, thinking I would drape a towel over the bottom of the jar, gently crack the glass and free the stubborn grape leaves. What could possibly go wrong?

"There's pieces of glass everywhere!" a now highly annoyed Iris of Ionia fumed, perhaps more angry with herself for providing the hammer than with me for liberating the leaves in a scene out of "Die Hard - With Olive Oil."

Tut-tut, I assured her. First she was going to strain the leaves. And then she was going to personally handle each individual leaf as she rolled in the stuffing mixture. If any errant piece of glass remained, she would be sure to catch it.

As Oliver Hardy always insisted to Stan Laurel, "What could possibly go wrong?"

Indeed, it was sweet vindication, after being regarded as a complete idiot by the Marigold of Macy's, just how perfectly delicious the dolmades were coming out of the oven.

"Wait a minute! What's this?" the Blue Bonnet of Bobbie Brown sighed as she picked a tiny glass shard from her dolmades, thus restoring my "complete idiot" status.

What a shame we had to toss the entire batch - before the Bridesmaid of Beelzebub got to them.

Keyword: Book of Ruth to read and comment on Daniel Ruth's blog.

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