Alarming, amusing, amazing things other people do

[petite tête de chou]

Cat hair in food is indeed gross but the main problem I have with kitties on the counter is the fact that they dig in cat boxes and dirt to cover their business. And then track *that* where ever they may roam.

I realize that many folks still don't have access to recycling. That sucks and there's not much they can do. It's those that do have access and don't even make an attempt at recycling that concern me.

Sorry, I can't get behind the open trash can idea. It would be like having my own little open landfill...sans the seagulls and rats.

[sazji]

I love this thread! I was just thinking of some recently...

People who leave water running when they aren't using it. It may be a produce of living with water shortages, but when someone's using water, it's running, then they turn away to do something else while the water just runs and runs...it's all I can do to stop myself from reaching over and turning it off. Once I did, and the response was, 'why did you do that, I was still using it.' In my own house I will say something. Politely, but I'll say it.

I love good ice cream. I had friends back in Seattle, who fortunately will not be reading this post, who would have dinner, then bring out two half gallons of Haagen Dasz or what have you for dessert. Everyone would take what they wanted, and as we ate, the open ice cream containers would sit out on the counter melting! I'd sit and squirm and want to take it and put it back in the freezer...I can't stand wasting food but wasting really good ice cream must be a special class of sin!

Watching people cut things dangerously, coming close to chopping fingernails or whatver...I can't watch. I tell myself "they still have all their fingers, get over it" but I just have to look the other way.

Seeing things get overcooked while people aren't paying attention to the food on in the frying pan, on the grill, whatever. My old upstairs neighbor was a sweet woman who loved to invite people over for dinner, breakfast, whatever. Great, except when she cooked fish. Leathery, dry, parched. The third time I sort of hinted that the fish might be done, and luckily she asked me how to tell so I showed her and didn't have to bite my tongue any further.

My old housemate however was incorrigible, and I knew better than to open my mouth (either to tell him that his "stir fry" had been dead for 15 minutes now, or to let any of it into my mouth!). Amazing how a wok full of different colored vegetables becomes uniform in tone after 20 minutes of the old Bessemer treatment!

[Kouign Aman]

Au contraire - the open trash can has free flow of air leting trash dry up. Putting a lid on it just creates a warmer more humid environment for rot to happen. Plus everytime one touches the lid of the trashcan, one contaminates one's hand. Yuck. :tongue in cheek:

[Special K]

Alarming: Barefoot in the kitchen. I'm pretty sure my husband is cured of that one, though. I think it came to $267 a stitch.

Amusing: Whenever he's adding anything to anything, he has to do it from at least a two-foot height, thus ensuring a big mess. all over the kitchen and his clothes (Wear an apron? Him? No way. Anyway, what he'd need is a dropcloth). Ah, well. He's an enthusiastic, pretty good cook, and he has many other redeeming qualities.

Amazing: My dear Mom is still alive and hasn't killed anyone, either by poisoning them or burning the place down. If forced to eat her offerings, I've learned to rely on 90-proof gin to kill whatever. Actualy, that smooths over a lot of other obstacles, too.

[rooftop1000]

have you ever seen a commercial kitchen trash can with a lid??

nuff said

well except that dish/hand towels are nasty...I keep 2 pretty ones on the oven handle and wipe everything with paper towels, wastefull, maybe - cleaner, yes

tracey

[Dianabanana]

Once when visiting my grandparents, we found a carton of eggs in their refrigerator, half of which were broken. Not hairline cracks, but big gaping cracks. When we tried to throw them out, my grandmother started yelling "Those are perfectly good! You can't throw those out! What are we going to have for breakfast?"

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I used to do volunteer grocery shopping for the elderly. On my first delivery to one woman, she asked me to stay for a cup of tea. "Would you like milk in your tea?" "Yes, thank you." As I was taking my first sip, my eyes happened to fall on the expiration date on the pint carton of milk. It had expired more than a year previously.

[viva]

Reuses ice cubes. He buys bagged ice, uses a few cubes for his soda pop, rinses the leftover cubes and puts them back in the bag which is kept unsealed in the freezer

Wow! I wonder how much water he uses to rinse the cubes? Enough, say, to fill a cube's worth in an ice cube tray?

My cats get on the counter while I'm cooking too - they're not interested in my food, they just want to know what's going on up there. They don't stay long. Plus, it's a stopping point to one of their favorite napping locations, the top of the kitchen cabinets (countertop to refrigerator top to cabinet top). I figure my cats' paws are probably cleaner than most people's hands, including mine.

Edit: see one of said cats in my avatar, on top of the kitchen island, chewing on a plant.

Edited July 10, 2007 by viva (log)

[Porthos]

My trash can and recycle can do not have lids but there is a book case on the end of the counter that blocks the main work surface from the trash can. Depending on how much prep is involved I may or may not choose to get a garbage bowl to put the discards in.

Reading through this thread I was reminded of something that happened where I do my volunteer cooking. I found a bag of oranges that had gone moldy. As I headed to the trash can the woman that runs the kitchen stopped me from throwing them out because she was going to try and salvage them. The only thing oranges were used for was to slice into sections for people to eat. I can't imagine someone scrapping the mold off of something and then serving it. Major Yuck.

In the amazing department. My mother-in-law hosted Thanksgiving for up to 30 people each year until she passed away. She was a terrific cook. The amazing thing is that her kitchen only had about 4 feet of usable counter space split into 2 sections. I will never know now she did it. MY wife and I go over and cook for my father-in-law and marvel at how she managed in such a space. Just fixing one nice dinner for six is pushing it for us.

This amazing woman also, with help, cooked meals for her annual sorority wine tasting and dinner fund-raiser for as many as 150 guests.

[Malkavian]

Alarming- roommate's kitchen has a path in it, delineated by hair and crumbs, where traffic went. Also till recently, it had a rotting rug by the dishwasher which WAS rotting because of the steam venting when the wash was done. (The counters are fine though, which is all I care about at the moment)

Disgusting- same guy just the other day pulled out a bag of mystery meat from the freezer, declared that he'd probably been saving it (as if it were some mythical vintage) "since before you moved in" (8 months) and deposited the ice encrusted freezerburnt crap into a pot to make hamburger helper. HH is bad enough with good ground beef, much less mushy sirloin (No I didn't eat it) Sadly, this isn't uncommon as he very much has a complex for getting "deals" which he freezes then forgets about.

[FistFullaRoux]

I ate dinner once at a place where the person who was cooking was also the mother of 3 very young children, ranging in age from just toddling to 1st grade. It was Dad's job to keep the little buggers out of mom's hair while she was cooking, if dad and children planned on eating that night.

Evidently, Dad was not taking his job seriously enough. He and I were watching SportsCenter and talking football, when I hear a shriek from the kitchen. Number 2 son comes flying out, briefly reminding me of the running of the bulls in Pamplona, covered in a mysterious beige fluid. I caught a whiff of vanilla as his young toddler sister stumbled by, similarly coated. Mother followed behind with a now nearly empty bowl of what turned out to be cake batter.

Dad's face fell. Jesus wept. Bowl goes upside down on dad's head. Followed by a terse "There will be no dessert tonight, I'm sorry."

I had to take a smoke break to keep from cracking up and ruining a perfectly good story by becoming an active character.

[cakewalk]

I ate dinner once at a place where the person who was cooking was also the mother of 3 very young children, ranging in age from just toddling to 1st grade. It was Dad's job to keep the little buggers out of mom's hair while she was cooking, if dad and children planned on eating that night.

Evidently, Dad was not taking his job seriously enough. He and I were watching SportsCenter and talking football, when I hear a shriek from the kitchen. Number 2 son comes flying out, briefly reminding me of the running of the bulls in Pamplona, covered in a mysterious beige fluid. I caught a whiff of vanilla as his young toddler sister stumbled by, similarly coated. Mother followed behind with a now nearly empty bowl of what turned out to be cake batter.

Dad's face fell. Jesus wept. Bowl goes upside down on dad's head. Followed by a terse "There will be no dessert tonight, I'm sorry."

I had to take a smoke break to keep from cracking up and ruining a perfectly good story by becoming an active character.

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Good one.

Garbage cans without lids? Major yuk.

I have a friend who has three cats. I guess you could say they allow my friend to share the apartment with them. I cannot eat there. We meet and go out for a meal. Always.

I had a roommate once who washed out plastic bags and hung them up to dry. It wasn't environmental consciousness as much as it was anal retentiveness. I used to wonder about her sanity, but this business of reusing ice cubes beats all.

In my brother's apartment there is a path from the fridge to the microwave.

[Lindacakes]

For balance, amazing:

In college I had a friend who hosted Sunday potlucks at her tiny little house at the top of a hill. She had a couch in the kitchen, and over the sink a copy of Scott Fitzgerald's accounting of his household expenses (wild parties was one of the entries). One could open the back door, which led directly into the kitchen, sit on the couch with a drink, and talk to her while she cooked, gazing steadlily out onto the grassy hill.

My grandmother liked to host mother's day at her house, with all of her children and their children and cook a lasagna so big that the oven door couldn't close -- a thick rug was placed over the cracked open part to close it off.

[Darren72]

My mother thaws out meat by leaving it out on the counter.

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...and??? So does practically everyone I know. How do you suggest we defrost it???

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In the fridge...

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If I were to try to defrost in my fridge, it would take DAYS o_O I dont tend to plan my meals out that far in advance.

I am guilty, I am a counter thawer too.

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If you are really in that much of a hurry, try defrosting by filling the sink with room-temperature water and putting the (well wrapped) meat in the water. This is much faster than defrosting on the counter. It will be even faster if you have the water running a little bit.

[Darren72]

I used to do volunteer grocery shopping for the elderly. On my first delivery to one woman, she asked me to stay for a cup of tea. "Would you like milk in your tea?" "Yes, thank you." As I was taking my first sip, my eyes happened to fall on the expiration date on the pint carton of milk. It had expired more than a year previously.

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Perhaps the milk had been frozen....clearly she wasn't drinking year-old milk.

[sazji]

I used to do volunteer grocery shopping for the elderly. On my first delivery to one woman, she asked me to stay for a cup of tea. "Would you like milk in your tea?" "Yes, thank you." As I was taking my first sip, my eyes happened to fall on the expiration date on the pint carton of milk. It had expired more than a year previously.

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Perhaps the milk had been frozen....clearly she wasn't drinking year-old milk.

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Maybe she wasn't drinking it at all...she was just saving for "special" guests.

My grandmother used to put on huge Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, and she was a very good cook. As my grandparents got older, they got a bit forgetful...Mom went down just before Thanksgiving - got in the day before - and found that she'd invited a bunch of people as usual (for dinner thank God), and she hadn't done any shopping yet, there was just one small bowl of cranberry sauce made, and my grandfather had eaten about a third of it. There was no sitting around resting after the flight that year!

[Dianabanana]

I used to do volunteer grocery shopping for the elderly. On my first delivery to one woman, she asked me to stay for a cup of tea. "Would you like milk in your tea?" "Yes, thank you." As I was taking my first sip, my eyes happened to fall on the expiration date on the pint carton of milk. It had expired more than a year previously.

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Perhaps the milk had been frozen....clearly she wasn't drinking year-old milk.

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Well, that's a thought. The carton was unopened when she took it out of the refrigerator, so I suppose she could have been saving it in her freezer for a year and taken it out in advance of my visit, although, given all the other circumstances, I kind of doubt it. But that never occurred to me. If it was ultrapasteurized, though, I think it could remain in the carton for a year without becoming too gaggingly smelly. My college roommate and I conducted numerous inadvertent "experiments" with ultrapasteurized milk from the dining hall, and it was bizarre and disturbing the way it never got stinky like normal milk.

[Sugarella]

Ok, I give..... what's wrong with putting knives in the dishwasher?? As long as there's nothing to bang them and you use liquid soap so they can't get marred, I fail to see how hot water could possibly hurt steel. What am I missing?

[rooftop1000]

Ok, I give..... what's wrong with putting knives in the dishwasher?? As long as there's nothing to bang them and you use liquid soap so they can't get marred, I fail to see how hot water could possibly hurt steel. What am I missing?

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Over the course of my life I had never had both a dishwasher and good knives....untill a few years ago and the day came when I put my Henkles in the dishwasher and the handles cracked at the rivets

the Farberware crap still goes in there but its probabley not safe to be rumaging around with a knife point sticking up

an aside...if you happen to be washing Sterling and stainless at the same time make sure they wont touch, the sterling can get scratched

tracey

[Malkavian]

Ok, I give..... what's wrong with putting knives in the dishwasher?? As long as there's nothing to bang them and you use liquid soap so they can't get marred, I fail to see how hot water could possibly hurt steel. What am I missing?

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Depending on how hard your water is, my understanding is that spots are a distinct possibility, as well as wooden handles deforming.

[prasantrin]

Au contraire - the open trash can has free flow of air leting trash dry up. Putting a lid on it just creates a warmer more humid environment for rot to happen. Plus everytime one touches the lid of the trashcan, one contaminates one's hand. Yuck.  :tongue in cheek:

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One of the reasons I used a non-lidded garbage can was because the garbage can that was provided was broken, so the lid stayed open, anyway. My employers finally bought a new lidded garbage can for my apartment, and I noticed that the garbage was even stinkier when placed in the lidded garbage can. Everytime I opened the thing, I got a huge whiff of stink. I stopped using it after that, and went back to my non-lidded can. I don't get nearly as much stink from it, but my garbage gets picked up twice a week, so it doesn't sit out for long.

Now my lidded garbage can only gets used for recycling, and as extra counter space.

[kellytree]

- leaving the water running because "it gives me a sense of hygiene" (this drives me crazy - wasting water and my cash all so you can feel clean - what about some waterfall music)

- throwing away leftovers for dinner that would be a perfect quick lunch for one

yet putting the leftover salad (dressed) in the fridge for tomorrow

- my sister in general- we call at 5pm saying hey just got into town (from across the world) and she says "well, we are just about to eat now so it isn't a good time" .... as if she has made a special gourmet meal for her children ... as if there isn't enough to eat ... as if it would be too much work to nuke up another 3 hotdogs for the kids ...... as if you haven't seen us for over a year and basically new when the plane was getting in and how long it takes from the airport to home. bitch.

- or when she does cook and "doctors" up a perfectly simple lobster salad with mangos, pineapple, balsamic vinegar, of some other "fancy" thing.

Edited July 12, 2007 by kellytree (log)

[Peter the eater]

I defrost on the counter during winter, when it's only 5-10C inside my apartment.

Wow that's a cold kitchen.

You could almost put stuff on the counter to freeze.

[prasantrin]

I defrost on the counter during winter, when it's only 5-10C inside my apartment.

Wow that's a cold kitchen.

You could almost put stuff on the counter to freeze.

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I wear almost as much clothing inside my apartment as I do outside during winter. But it's only 5-10C at night. During the day it can range from 10-15C. And it really does take a long time to defrost things on my counter during winter!

[Teri Everitt]

My mother thaws out meat by leaving it out on the counter.

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My mother did this my entire childhood without managing to poison anyone. However, it was too much for my nerves several Christmas dinners ago when she washed out the turkey while prepping it and sat it in the dishrack to drain. As soon as she had it in the pan I scrubbed it and the sink down

[annanstee]

My lovely aunt has burned down her kitchen three times.

Three words: unattended chip pan.