7 Kitchen Tasks and Recipes I Hate!

This may come as a surprise to you, but there are days I want to rip my hair out in the kitchen.  I absolutely love what I do, but there are a few things that I hate.  Some are certain recipes I have to cook at work, and others are prepping tasks that make me want to blow my brains out.  Here is a short list of examples:

1. ANYTHING regarding chocolate.  Anyone that knows me, knows I hate it.  The nasty smell of it, the feeling of it when it melts on my fingers, the gross way it leaves a chocolaty trail in my mouth when I attempt to eat it.  It's disgusting.  Even thinking about it gives me the chills.  In a bad way.  This is #1 on the list for a reason.  I hate touching it, chopping it, smelling it.  Yuck.
2. Cleaning spinach.  My clients have me make creamed spinach at least once a week.  They buy 4 giant bunches that are more often than not coated in dirt and mud.  I have to soak them in the sink at least twice to get rid of the grit.  Then, most tedious of all, I have to remove the stems from the leaves, one at a time.  It takes like 30 minutes.  There is no sense in buying the fresh spinach.  First of all, it's expensive.  Secondly, frozen spinach is exactly the same thing.  It would save me time and them money, but for some reason they opt for the fresh stuff.  I get paid, so I can't complain I suppose.
3. Touching chicken.  Even at home, I always use gloves.  The skin, the fat, the flesh ... it is so nasty.  And I clean everything with bleach afterward that the chicken could have possibly breathed its salmonella on.  As a side note, I will say that I got a 97% on my chicken fabrication final in culinary school.  But, ew.  Raw poultry is for the birds.  
4. Prepping shallots.  Random, I know.  But they are a pain in the ass.  The skin is super thin and sometimes impossible to peel off.  Then you get shallot twinsies that have the space in between them that is coated in black mold that is super nasty.  It gets on your fingers, it stinks .... Ugh.  I hate those things.  
5. Cooking rice on the stove.  This is my Achilles heal.  For some reason, I always screw it up.  It ends up an over cooked, starchy mess and scorched to the bottom of the pan every time!  I have a rice cooker now, which is the secret to my rice cooking success.  Well worth the investment.
6. Noodle Kugel.  That makes me dry heave just thinking about it.  It's supposedly Jewish comfort food, but that is highly debatable.  It's egg noodles, baked in a dish with this nasty custard laced with raisins and cinnamon.  Imagine creme brulee with pasta.  I take so much pride in what I do, but I made this the other day and I gagged as I was plating it.  It's so awful.  I can't even taste-test it, and I feel badly serving it.  But my family loves that stuff.  Go figure.
7. Martha Stewart's Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries.  I saved this for last because these things are the bane of my existence.  I must have made this recipe 50 times, but 25 of those times were fixing the recipe so it worked.  The "fries" would come out mushy every time, or they would stick to the pan.  One has to first pre-cook them in the microwave, then plop them onto a cookie sheet so the excess moisture can steam away.  Then you whip egg whites with brown sugar.  Coat the "fries" in the mixture then bake them off at a very high temperature.  They'd come out masked in a cloak of scrambled egg whites.  And mushy.  Way to go, Martha.  Recipes are a suggested guideline, people.  They do not always work and you have to use common sense and instinct to fix them.  

Don't get me wrong.  I love what I do.  I love the people I cook for, and I usually wake up in a great mood knowing that I am blessed to be able to earn money at what I am passionate about.  But there are days I want to cringe.