Bugs in the Quiche

Dedicated to Heather and Todd

I have told this story a few times -- but not until several years had passed after the event.  It's one of my favorites. I invited Todd and Heather over for dinner in the fall of '93. It was a busy week day, and I had a baby in tow, so at the last minute I was putting a quiche in the oven and hoping I had enough stuff for a salad.  Well, I came to the part where I needed to add nutmeg to the egg mixture, and I was out of nutmeg. (How could that happen?)  From the recesses of my mind, I recalled an old spice rack that I had received as a gift in 1981. It was in the bottom of the drawer under my oven.  I uncovered that spice rack and sure enough, there was a bottle of nutmeg!

I opened the little plastic lid that was supposed to look like wood, ripped off the seal that was on the top and dumped a tablespoon of the spice into my mixture.  Only problem was that over the years some little tiny bugs had lived and died in this bottle of nutmeg.  And now little tiny bug body shells were in my quiche mixture, and I had company company arriving in less than an hour. What should I do?

Well, I quickly skimmed out as many bug shells as I could, I stirred the mixture thoroughly and poured it into the pie shell and baked it. And we had it for dinner. Everyone said it was delicious.

I decided that since I was willing to eat quiche with bugs in it that it would be okay to serve it to my guests.  We have all lived happy and healthy lives since.