My all-American mom excelled at cooking complex and decidedly non-standard fare (for middle America at least) but failed when it came to simple things. Jell-o stumped her, honestly. But a batch of from-scratch grape-leaf sarma - an all-day affair that took over the entire kitchen and dining table - was a triumphant winner whenever she made it.

Her worst concoction was swiss steak. What we ended up with was a usually-burnt piece of stringy, dry meat which had definitely not been tenderized with a tomato-y sauce that had many bits of curled-up tomato skin in it and green peppers that had been cooked so long to the point of bitterness, plopped on top of mashed potatoes made from a box with too much liquid so they were on the soupy side. (She refused to make mashed potatoes from real potatoes, ever, who knows why.)

Just thinking about that meat makes me want to go floss my teeth right now.