A Lesson On Following Directions

Pat (my older brother) has only followed one recipe in his life. It was such a disaster that he never followed a recipe again! We were kids, and Pat had just become a Boy Scout, so I guess that would make him about 11 or 12 and me about 7 or 8. It was mother's day and he wanted to make "Breakfast in Bed" for Mom and Dad. We got up early and went to the kitchen. Pat got his trusty Boy Scout Handbook out and looked up "French Toast" and we got busy.

We clanked around for a while and made a mess, but somehow managed to come up with breakfast. We mixed up the batter and made the toast in the skillet. It looked delicious. There was plenty of batter left and so we made some more French toast. Why not? We had to eat too! After that, we saw that there was still plenty of batter left so we thought we'd make seconds.

We figured it had to be a great recipe for the Scouts to use it! This process continued for some time, and we deiced that we'd just bring the food up to Mom and Dad (who were wide awake and in complete fear of the noise we were making) and then come back down and make the rest. We brought it up and they enjoyed their breakfast. Dad was the first one down to the kitchen and saw what we had been doing. He looked over the situation and looked at all the French toast we were making. He then looked in the bowl of batter we had made and saw that there was a lot left.

"Thanks for the breakfast, fellas." Dad said. "You're welcome." Pat responded.

"We had fun!" I chimed in. "Where'd you get the recipe for the French toast?" Dad asked. "From the Scout book." Pat replied. Dad walked over to the Scout book and looked at the recipe.

At the top it said: "Serves 40." Pat never followed a recipe again. .

By: Paul D. McDonald, MBA