In all my previous blogs I have detailed my great culinary achievements.  There are, however, some failures.  As the saying goes you learn more from your failures than you do from your success, but I think that is a load of  crap.  Give me success every time. 

Tomorrow night is New Years Eve and we are attending a party at a friend’s house.  The plan is for everyone to be involved in the cooking with many small courses (so we do not finish up and head to bed by 10 pm) 

I declared that I was going to make Thai Spring rolls as one of the appetizers.  I made them before but many years ago so I decided to do a trial run tonight for Pat and I to make sure I can shine tomorrow night.  It was a disaster.

I followed a recipe exactly.  The rolls burst open when I put them in the hot oil filling the pan with bean sprouts and shrimp.  I managed to save a few that we ate but they were not crisp and looked like hell.  Flavour was great but what a horrible presentation. 

Too late to change my mind about tomorrow so I went on-line to see what might have gone wrong.  I suspect that there was too much fluid left in the fillings so when they went in the deep fryer they immediately boiled and burst the wrappers. 

I would like to test it again with a drier filling but I am on stage tomorrow night so I hope I figured it out.  Fortunately Pat is preparing a Margarita pot de creme desert (which we had at Lisa’s) so even if my dish is a failure, by the end of the evening with lots of wine and later champagne I will be forgiven (or better yet forgotten)