Not sure if I’ve mentioned this here before, but I am a culinary rock star.

What? I haven’t told you this? Well let me tell you now!

Sunday after church I decided to make chicken wings. I thawed the chicken, pulled out the crock pot, then went online to look for a recipe. Which is when I discovered that our line was not on. We had no cable, no internet, and thus no recipes.

Steve called Verizon while I tried not to panic. I looked through the kitchen for anything that seemed vaguely wing-ish.

I remembered an old recipe that called for mixing grape jelly and ketchup, but we had no grape jelly and I wasn’t sure one could substitute Strawberry Polaner All-Fruit and live to tell the tale. Undaunted, I squirted a half gallon of ketchup in the crock pot, put in the wings, then covered them with brown sugar and honey. That didn’t seem liquid-y enough, so more ketchup. I set it for 4 hours on high, said a prayer for God’s mercy over this sad little meal, and escaped into a book.

An hour later, Steve and the fine people at Verizon solved our connection crisis, and he turned on the Pats game. He said, “Wow, I thought I was going to have to head down to [the bar a few blocks away] and order up some wings to watch the game!”

“But I’m making wings!” I said, pouting (but of course still exuding my usual calm and gracious maturity.)

“Um…chicken and ketchup?” Steve asked skeptically. I had to admit, the kitchen smelled a little gross. “We need some pineapple or something,” he mused, “with soy sauce…”

“WE HAVE THOSE THINGS!” I exclaimed, then sprinted to the kitchen.  You see, Steve’s mom bought me some canned pineapple to use with our Easter ham…back in April… which I forgot all about…and shoved to the back of the pantry to hide my shame. Maybe it could save the day!

I tossed the yellow chunks into the bubbling cauldron of ketchup with unrestrained glee, then doused it all with a soaking of soy sauce. (The basis of my cooking philosophy is that salt makes everything better.  And soy sauce = healthy salt, right?) I let this new mixture churn for 3 more hours, then served my “wing-it wings” over rice.

Those. Wings. Were. DELICIOUS! It was like homemade sweet & sour sauce, without all the nasty additives. I will totally make these again, only I’ll bake them so the skin gets nice and crunchy.  Another strange recipe in our collection of favorites, another set of protein parts saved from the brink of disaster!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am (for this moment at least) a culinary rock star.