October is Dining Month on OnMilwaukee.com. All month, we're stuffed with restaurant reviews, special features, chef profiles and unique articles on everything food. Bon appetit!

In my book, cooking is usually two parts art to one part science. I rarely take recipes at face value and enjoy experimenting with random ideas I get on the fly. Sometimes, I amaze myself and consider starting bed and breakfast. Other times, I create gastro-distasters. It's all part of the process and although they're embarrassing, I figured that Dining Month on OnMilwaukee.com was a good time to talk about them.

I realize a blog such as this is most likely going to make me come off as A) an incredible idiot or 2) a horrible cook. I like to think I'm neither, though this list might suggest otherwise. Nevertheless, I usually don't ever really learn how to do something unless I screw it up first, so without further ado, here are my five biggest food blunders to date.

1. Trying to melt Parmesan cheese. This one was one of those after school teenage moments of glory. I, of course, came home from school starving and immediately hit the pantry to scour for anything and everything that would and could destroy my appetite for dinner. Usually there were family-sized bags of tortilla chips, large jars of salsa, freshly baked brownies (the kind with the peanut butter swirl in them) or an array of breakfast cereals for me and my friends to feast on after a long, laborious day of high school. But the food blunder in reference occurred on a dangerously bare cupboard day at the Lawrence house during which I was force to get creative. I found a small portion of pretzels left in a bag.

OK. That's a start. But what I really desired was cheese to melt on them. When I opened the fridge, the only kind I found was Parmesan -- the Kraft version that's already grated. My science skills kicked in and I assumed that since it was still technically cheese, it must melt if heat were to be applied. I spread the pretzels out on a plate and shook that Kraft container until I could no longer see the little brown shapes beneath the fallen cheese. After 30 seconds in the microwave, I removed the contents and frowned. Not only did the cheese not melt so much as solidify, but the pretzels has turned damp with moisture. The agony.

2. Re-heating coffee in a saucepan. I have lived microwave-free and proud for two years now, but I have to admit, every now and then I find myself wondering how people existed without modern technology in the kitchen. I use a French press to make my coffee at home, and although it's always rich and delicious, the simple glass container does nothing to maintain my coffee's temperature for prolonged periods of time, as, say, an automatic coffee maker would. One weekend morning I returned to my kitchen to find at least a cup's worth of coffee in the press, but it had gone cold. The more I looked at it, the more I wanted it but without a way to zap it, I was forced (yes, forced) to dump it into a saucepan on the stove. I wasn't sure how long to leave it, but I turned off the heat just before it stated simmering. That was, apparently, far too long. It was the most bitter tasting mug of joe I'd ever had; completely inconsumable. Do not try this at home.

3. Eating raw tofu dipped in ketchup. I'm not gonna lie. This was a total bar-time drunk move fueled by beer munchies and impaired judgment. There's nothing worse than coming home from a night at the bars to find there's nothing to eat before passing out. Alas, we've all been there. Sometimes I just give up and hit the hay; other times I reach for the package of cold, raw extra firm tofu in its brine and the only other thing in my refrigerator: the ketchup. This is, in a word, disgusting. Please learn from my mistakes; call Jimmy John's.

4. Making brownies with egg-replacer. It was the first time I'd made dinner for my boyfriend's family. It was just a cookout, so overall, the pressure was pretty low. I picked up a gallon of ice cream and a box of brownie mix for dessert; couldn't be easier, right? Well, as vegetarians, we never have eggs in the house and, of course, it didn't even occur to me that I'd need them until his entire family was already over. I reached for my trusty Ener-G Foods egg replacer, which had served me so well in pancakes all these years, and hoped for the best. Add an oven from the Stone Age that basically has two settings: on or off, and the end result is a sloppy pan of half gooey, half solidified chocolate that was only getting worse with time. Out of desperation, we removed it from the oven, rolled it up and called it "log." I'm embarrassed to say we first took photos of this now disgusting looking brown mass, then broke it into small chunks and ate it. They actually didn't taste too bad added to bowls of vanilla ice cream.

5. Making vegan ice cream with regular tofu instead of silken. This isn't going to resonate with anyone who hasn't attempted to make their own ice cream (much less vegan ice cream), but it's still one of those bad calls that's worth noting. We received a home ice cream maker as a gift and have been whipping up batches all summer long. When we invited vegan friends over for dinner, we attempted a dairy-free version that called for silken tofu rather than real cream. I had regular, firm tofu already in my fridge and thought, "how different can it be?" This is one of those instances when you do not want to stray from the recipe. The silken tofu turns into a smooth, dairy-free sweet cream, whereas the regular tofu remained chunky and retained its blatant "tofu" taste. Not even a pound of berries and sugar could save this one.