I'M NOT REALLY the one to call if you need help in the kitchen. If your toilet's backed up, I can handle that. If you need your dog walked or your car washed, I'm your girl.

If you're cooking for two dozen, lose my number.

My past kitchen experience has focused more on averting disaster, death and dismemberment than on creating something divine.

For instance, I've learned that if you try to heat something shiny in the microwave, it will probably catch fire. But I learned this only following several unfortunate incidents, after which my parental rights to my own microwave were terminated and custody of said microwave was transferred to my younger brother.

(It's not that he takes his kitchen responsibilities much more seriously than I do. It's just that he's quicker at extinguishing the ensuing flames.)

Bottom line: My culinary skills occupy not so much a well of knowledge as a petri dish.

In spite of this, come Christmas Day, I'm standing in the kitchen at Beth Sholom Temple in Stafford County, helping prepare dinner for two dozen residents of the Thurman Brisben Center, the region's homeless shelter.

Ordinarily, I would just cover something like this for the newspaper. But seeing as how I'm a member of the temple, it seemed silly not to also pitch in.

Actually, I figured the other members would give me flak if all I did was stand around and watch.

I had debated whether I should tell my mother how I was planning to spend Christmas Day.

"Oy vey," I figured she'd say. "Like being homeless isn't hard enough, they should also have to eat your cooking?"

Actually, my mother was very supportive.

"Your cooking is fine," she said, trying to reassure me. "You pour a beautiful bowl of Frosted Flakes. God willing, you'll make a cereal addict a wonderful wife some day."

Alas, my skills with a box of cereal were wasted this Christmas. Jim Swanson, the temple member in charge of orchestrating this meal, felt a 30-pound beef roast would be more appropriate.

Whatever.