I think I’ve told this one before…
Winter of 2000, I’m new in my first apartment. I’m making chocolate chip cookies, nothing fancy, just the recipe on the back of the bag of chips. For some reason now unfathomable to me, I was only making a half recipe. But then I accidentally add a full recipe worth of baking soda. Well, I can’t take it out, so I figure I’ll bake one tray of them, taste them, and decide what to do from there.
So the first tray comes out, and they’re bitter as all heck, edible only with large quantities of ice cream. Well, I say to myself, that makes sense: Baking soda is a base, and bases are bitter. Obviously, what I need to do is neutralize the base (I’ve since been informed that this is not the way most people think when they’re cooking).
Except, remember how I said that this was my first apartment, and I was new there? I hadn’t yet fully stocked up my kitchen, so I had no vinegar. No lemon juice. No sour cream. I did have spaghetti sauce, but I wasn’t that crazy.
And then, staring into the refridgerator, I saw it. A jar of pickles. A couple of teaspoons later, and a lot of kneeding/stirring, and I’m ready for the next batch. They came out fine.