I really want to say something about my aunt, but I have no idea where to start. Should I begin with the stories of her cooking-challenged students? Or with the creation of a barnyard mafia from playing dominoes?

She's sort of crazy, and she's one of the funniest people I've ever met. She teaches a cooking class at UNL, and most of her students have never cooked before. Some of the stories she tells makes me wonder how her students have avoided earning Darwin Awards.

There was the boy who tried to bake cookies with the oven door open.

He apparently put over-large dollops of cookie dough on his baking sheet. When my aunt came over and told him that the dough would fall off the edge of the flat sheet, he'd have to scrape the dough off and try it again. He didn't. She said that he'd have to stay after class and clean the oven to her satisfaction. A few moments later, she walked past him sitting in front of the (open) oven door, scooping falling cookie dough back on to the baking sheet.

Baking with the oven door open was unprecedented. Congrats, who ever you are.

There was also the boy who made bread soup.

He didn't read very carefully and thought that this recipe (for a loaf of bread) called for two tablespoons of flour.