Heinz Marketing Holiday Fails
Lisa Heay
Summary
Life is not always Instagram-worthy. Here is a fun take on holiday fails from the Heinz Marketing team.
By Lisa Heay, Director of Business Operations at Heinz Marketing
I have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew—I must have an over-confidence in my abilities because it never fails. Sound familiar? That toxic trait seems to just compound around the holidays, inspiring me to write this blog post to lighten the mood as the year winds down.
There are all kinds of perfectly curated posts and Instagram-worthy photos of beautiful holiday meals and decorations. But I’m here to keep it real for those of us who have big aspirations that maybe don’t pan out.
I had a feeling I wasn’t alone, so I put an ask out to the Heinz Marketing team to share their holiday fails with me. I’m so glad to see that I’m not the only one.
Enjoy! And Happy Holidays from all of us less-than-perfect humans at Heinz Marketing!
Cake Pop Snowmen – or Sludge?
It’s only fair that I kick us off with my own fail story. This was probably 6 years ago now, and I was feeling the pressure of being a mom and making all of the Christmas magic happen for my kids. I’d seen these adorable cake ball snowmen on Pinterest and knew I had to try it. They’d just love them! I could give them away to their teachers, friends, family – this was going to be GREAT.
Had I ever made a successful Christmas cookie or treat in the past? No. But how hard could it be? I gathered my ingredients and followed the recipe (or so I thought) to a tee.
Well, as you can see – things didn’t work out as I planned. I got maybe two that stayed upright, and all the rest were a sloppy, goopy, teetering mess.
Let’s just say there was a lot of swearing involved, maybe some tears, and my hopes that I was the next Martha Stewart were squashed.
For the record? They still tasted good.
Where’s the [Tender] Beef? – from Sheena McKinney
One year for our annual sibling Christmas Eve dinner we served beef short ribs and learned a tough lesson (pun intended).
We thought the recent smash hit with our friends using our cast iron Dutch oven warranted a second act that would bring equal accolades.
We sung the praises of how tender and delectable the fall-off-the-bone recipe was.
Everyone was hungry and excited to dig in… but the meat seemed to take forever to cook.
We thought we were so smart to save oven space for other holiday fare.
Our Holiday Fail? Thinking an electric, counter top Dutch Oven could do the job as well/the same as a cast iron Dutch oven.
Wrong. Well past our target eating time, the short ribs were done, but tough and chewy. Barely edible.
Lesson learned.
Burning (Gingerbread) Man – from Brittany Lieu
Here is a photo of my failed holiday gingerbread cookies! Not much to the story – my friends and I attempted to bake gingerbread cookies for the first time last December but left them in the oven for a tad too long…so we ended up just taking photos and laughing at ourselves.
A Griswold’s Thanksgiving Turkey – from Maria Geokezas
One year, my husband and I decided to try something different with the Thanksgiving turkey. Inspired by a grilled turkey recipe from a Thanksgiving Bon Appetit issue, we put the bird on a charcoal grill.
We followed the recipe exactly, but found it was really difficult to control the flames. We ended up with a very dry turkey.
But the worst part of it all was that the bar-b-que smokiness of the turkey was so strong that it made the whole house smell and you couldn’t really taste any of the other food that was served alongside. It’s like we were dining in a smoker.
Cheese Ball – Also from Maria Geokezas
I have been obsessed with cheese balls ever since the 7th grade when my family attended a friend’s fancy holiday house party. To me, cheese balls are the ultimate party appetizer: classy, delicious, festive and people seem to be quite impressed by my culinary skills when I show up with one for their party. I was feeling so confident with my cheese ball making skills that I changed up the recipe slightly for this Thanksgiving’s family dinner. Instead of a cheese ball, I got a cheese blob.
This is what it was supposed to look like:
But this is what I got:
Welcome to the Neighborhood! Matt and Beth Heinz
Matt: Five years ago, when we first moved into the farmhouse, the previous owners casually said that the oven and range might have a gas leak. So we replaced it quickly with a used Viking set-up from Second Use Seattle. It had been thoroughly cleaned and checked (they said….), and once we installed it everything seemed to be working great.
Until the night before Thanksgiving when we tried to broil something. Apparently the insulation above the broiler had become soaked in fat from use over the years and caught fire.
So, yeah, no oven for Thanksgiving that year. Weber kettle grill and a Coleman camp stove to the rescue!
Beth: Don’t forget meeting our new neighbors via the ENORMOUS fire truck that pulled into our driveway. We hadn’t met anyone previously.
Matt is too kind to mention that the markings were all worn off the oven dial. The firemen said that everything would be fine if we didn’t broil anything again until we got it repaired. Guess who forgot which way the dial turned and caught the stove on fire… again a week later????
