Here at Cork & Knife, we see some of the strangest press releases cross our desks each day.  But the one we received from the American Egg Board today made us laugh so hard we knew it qualified as news you would want to know and not merely another odd announcement.

Shannon Mountjoy of Houston, Texas was recently nominated by her sister for the "honor" of "America's Worst Cook." In a nationwide contest run by the American Egg Board to promote eggs as a simple food that even the worst home cooks can master, Shannon sunk to the bottom of more than 700 entries.

What merited this award? Well, it turns out that Shannon had a bit of a challenge at a recent Thanksgiving dinner with her new mother-in-law.  We're not sure there's any way to adequately summarize the story, so here it is from sister Debby's entry:

My sister realized that she hadn't taken the bread for the stuffing out of its package to allow it to dry out. There wasn't time to go buy breadcrumbs and pure panic started to set in.

Then a light bulb went off!

She took several loaves of bread, cut them up and put them in the clothes dryer.

Oops, it seemed like a good idea until...

... she went into the laundry room after 15 minutes and saw breadcrumbs shooting in an arc across the room. The hot air in the dryer was pushing the breadcrumbs right out of the air vent.

But wait! Shannon has an idea!

She grabbed a clean garbage bag and tried to catch the airborne main ingredient to her stuffing. She caught enough to make one pan of stuffing (which actually wasn't that bad). Her new mother-in-law complimented her on the stuffing (sigh of relief all around). Then, she turned to my sister and said, "You must give me the recipe." It took supreme will for my mother and me not to spit out our food in laughter.

Congratulations (condolences?) go out to Shanon Mountjoy.