I will never again . . . (Part 2)

[Rehovot]

I will never again

--dust the popover tray with butter and...breadcrumbs.

--open the oven door to check on said popovers.

--scratch my ear while holding a knife in the same hand.

[M.X.Hassett]

I will never again forget about bottle blowback when adding alcohol to food. If you are not familiar with this, when adding alcohol to a pan the fire can move up the stream of alcohol and blow the back of the bottle off. Always break the stream or add the alcohol to a seperate container and then to the dish.

[rme7]

...Get the stockpot heating up on full blast 'just for a minute.' The phone will ring, or I'll pop upstairs to get something, and I will forget that the pot's over a high heat. And 45 minutes later I will return to the kitchen to find that the water has turned into a cloudy, bitter slurry instead of a clear, sweet broth.

Richard

[turkeybone]

The morning after a night of, uh, festivities, I may or may not have stirred a bechamel for a solid 40 minutes before one of my co-workers turned up the low heat under it and said "ya know, it has to come up to a boil before it thickens".

[EdS]

Opened my fridge this morning to find a moat of black cherry vanilla Coke at the bottom. I didn't fully tighten the screw cap the night before yet placed the bottle on its side. Of course, it leaked.

[tino27]

I will never again spend twelve hours making a spelt flour poolish, an additional three hours to make and proof the dough, only to fall asleep after putting said loaves in the oven. I woke up three hours after the dough should have come out of the oven. The good news is that they had FAB-U-LOUS oven spring.

And this is for a friend of mine who brews his own beer using mini-kegs ...

I had gone for a weekend visit at the house of some college friends who are now "married, with children". He had finished a beer ealier in the week, but it wasn't quite up to the pressure that he wanted it. So, the morning I get there, he decides to TRIPLE the pressure (psi) that the beer was under in order to try and speed up the process. He keeps his mini-kegs in a converted regular refrigerator that they occasionally keep other food in as well (extra gallons of milk, etc). We leave to go grab lunch. When we get back, his wife informs us that she heard something from he basement where the refrigerator is located. As we get close to the fridge, the look of dismay starts to show on our faces. Beer is seeping out of the fridge onto the floor. We open the door and only then does my friend realize the error of his ways. The keg may be designed to withstand triple the pressure, but the plastic tubing connecting the keg to the tap wasn't. The ENTIRE contents of the keg emptied themselves all over the fridge. To make it worse, because of thermodynamics, the release of that much pressure caused the keg to freeze solidly to the floor. Along with anything else sitting on the floor of the fridge.

What a mess. We were just both glad that his wife hadn't tried to go into the fridge for some milk and gotten a faceful of beer.

[Anna N]

I will never again turn my back on "cafe au lait" that I have on high heat and then, when it is boiling over, pour it into a mug and IMMEDIATELY take a big gulp. Popsicles for dinner tonight - my mouth can't stand anything warmer.

[repoman]

...slice jalapenos and THEN decide to put in my contact lenses.

And, for the love of gawd, don't slice habaneros, then go to the bathroom!

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Ummm....yeah...that is really painful. Not that I have ever done it or anythin

[Special K]

I will never again let myself get so involved in conversation with my guests that I put the tenderly marinated, lovingly stuffed pork chops in the oven and neglect to switch it from "Preheat" to "Bake" AND forget to set the timer!

Umm! Smells good!

Pork jerky.

[Smithy]

I will never again let myself get so involved in conversation with my guests that I put the tenderly marinated, lovingly stuffed pork chops in the oven and neglect to switch it from "Preheat" to "Bake" AND forget to set the timer! 

Umm!  Smells good! 

Pork jerky.

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Oh, dear!

That sort of thing happens to me all the time, although generally on a less expensive scale. I really should learn to do most of the cooking beforehand. My cookery style generally involves things that have to be tended while they're cooking, and served shortly thereafter. Since I'm a lousy multitasker I'm forever getting distracted by the conversation and forgetting something.

Just last night I had relatives over for dinner. The two children are picky eaters, and I was warned in advance that they probably wouldn't eat the pasta carbonara. No problem, we decided well in advance; reserve some pasta without sauce, and the kids can put cheese, butter, or nothing as they chose. "Remind me to pull some of the pasta before I start mixing thing in," I told the parents. Then we got to talking, and drinking, and there I was chopping and stirring and answering questions about the animals and thinking about timing. About halfway through the mixing and stirring of the egg mixture, my nephew said, "Did you remember to reserve some of the pasta?" Whoops.

We adults enjoyed the carbonara, while the kids "enjoyed" macaroni that I cooked up as quickly as possible. (The parents kept insisting that it wasn't necessary, but I really didn't want to be such a bad host, considering that I'd known well in advance what I wanted to do.)

*sigh* I wish I could say "I will never again invite people over and cook while we're visiting", but I know myself too well....

[andiesenji]

I have the same problems with getting involved with people, which is why I wear a timer that hangs around my neck when I have to do something cricital at a specific time.

That does depend on remembering to set the timer, but now I simple put it on top of the recipe, with a clip holding it to the page or sheet of paper so I have to pick it up and put it on before I proceed.

I have several timers for different tasks, including one made by Taylor that is a super long-ring. It rings fo 20 seconds.

[reverendtmac]

When I need a smoky note in my gumbo, and I don't have any foodstuff that'll provide it, I promise to never ever use a slug of Lagavulin ever again.

[sazji]

I did a couple of good silly things this week. One of them tonight even. Can I say I'll never do them again...well, not purposely but...

So last week I was making this big batch of hand-cut noodles. I'd just gotten them done, they were in a nice pile on the counter. Besides cooking, my other love is horticulture, and that means that window space is at a premium. I had a small pot full of peat and perlite with several slips of winter Daphne brought by a friend from Oregon. The north window of my very cool kitchen is the perfect place for them. So as I'm reaching up to get a piece of ginger out of my hanging wire baskets, which were a bit overloaded, something shifted, a lemon fell out of the middle basket, behind, bounced off the wall into the bottom basket, which (in Rube Goldberg fashion) destabilized the potatoes there, sending exactly one small potato tumbling out of that basket. It fell down to the windowsill, bounced off, and landed squarely on the near corner of the little pot of Daphne cuttings, flipping the pot upside down, neatly and perfectly into the middle of my just cut noodles. Perlite is crunchy but not a recommended garnish.

The good news is, one of the cuttings had rooted....

The tonight I had friends coming over for dinner. I had *just* enough olive oil to make the salads with enough left over to make a garnish for the soup. I put it in a Turkish coffee pot with a bit of mint and had it heating at very low flame, then put on a big pot of brussels sprout head (the top of the plant...it's quite good) for a warm salad. I'd just been lighting the coal stove (the one that heats the house) and ran back to check it...the coal hadn't quite lit, so I gave it a bit of help with a torch. Came back, checked the greens...there seemed to be a toasty smell...but there was plenty of water in the pot still as they were steaming...the smell got even stronger and really rather evil smelling...Oh crap, forgot about the olive oil! And I was out, and didn't have time to run out for more. Luckily the neighbors had some...

[sazji]

I will never again turn my back on "cafe au lait" that I have on high heat and then, when it is boiling over, pour it into a mug and IMMEDIATELY take a big gulp.  Popsicles for dinner tonight - my mouth can't stand anything warmer.

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Ooooh, ah hate it when that happens... You must have really wanted that coffee! Wish you a speedy recovery...

[Anna N]

I will never again turn my back on "cafe au lait" that I have on high heat and then, when it is boiling over, pour it into a mug and IMMEDIATELY take a big gulp.  Popsicles for dinner tonight - my mouth can't stand anything warmer.

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Ooooh, ah hate it when that happens... You must have really wanted that coffee! Wish you a speedy recovery...

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Thanks! The mouth heals very fast, thank goodness. I am just fine now and I hope wiser.

[FistFullaRoux]

Did one today. I'll always doublecheck the oven temp when putting something in. I was reheating last night's pizza for lunch today. I turned on the oven, waited 10 or 15 minutes for preheating, popped the pizza in, and set a timer for 9 minutes. It was set for 450, but we usually keep it at 350 or so. 9 minutes later, the pizza that should have warmed perfectly was burned. grr.

Well, not completely. Some of it was edible if overcooked, but it still ticks me off.

[Darcie B]

I will never again fumble in the bottom of the shopping bag to retrieve an item while not paying attention to the dozen eggs at the top of the bag.

The sound of 12 eggs breaking simultaneously is quite disheartening.

Scrambled eggs for dinner...

[GastroChick]

I will never again strain my stock or soup down my kitchen sink.

[MobyP]

I will never again...

cut that part of my finger off using a mandoline.

Some things don't grow back.

[Patrick S]

In 40 pages, I'm sure this has been mentioned at least once, but . . . I'll never put stuff in the freezer again without labeling it. Whenever I put something in the freezer, a little voice in my head says "Label it!" But I ignore it, thinking that surely I'll be able to tell what it is a month from now. But then I end up in the freezer, a month later, chiseling out and sampling little chunks of various substances trying to find that last bit of raspberry ganache or bittersweet glaze or whatever.

[merstar]

I will never again get distracted while measuring teaspoonfuls of espresso powder to equal 3 Tbsp for a chocolate cake (the tsp measure fit into the jar better with more room to level off) - my mind went off into Neverland and I lost count.

Edited March 15, 2006 by merstar (log)

[Kouign Aman]

I will never again start to butcher a deer ....I will, next time, work out a better way to fend the puppy off during the butchering process.....this state of distended animation is pretty funny.

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"distended animation" - that is beautiful. A delightful turn-of-phrase, one for my collection. Thank you.

[Kim Shook]

OK, I really hope that egullet has some kind of health insurance for members. I am SUPPOSED to be recovering from abdominal surgery and I have been reading this thread start to finish (am only through page 20 so far) and I have about popped my staples laughing. It is truly humbling how often I have recognized something that I, too, have done! OK, here's mine:

I will never again...use an ingredient without tasting it first. Twice in the recent past (like today and a month ago) I have done this and been really sorry. Oddly enough, both ingredients were chips - as in peanut butter and white chocolate chips. The peanut butter ones were just subpar and didn't add much flavor to my cupcake frosting, but the white chocolate ones went into some brownies that I was making today as an anniversary surprise for Mr. Kim (I haven't been released to drive yet, so I was trying to do something homemade). Well, I tasted a leftover chip AFTER putting the brownies in the oven and it tasted 'off'. Well we'll see . So, I will never again...except, I probably WILL !

[Rebecca263]

I'll never buy Foodtown brand chocolate chips, even if the ingredients are the 'same'. We ended up returning the bag! We switched to Hershey's Special Dark Giant bars, broken up, for our cheap applesauce-whole wheat cookies, and it's MUCH better. Kiddle just refuses to understand that the GOOD chocolate(right now it's just some average Mexican stuff, but oh-yum!) is OK to bake with, she insists on eating it and using what she calls "cookie chocolate" in the baking. I.MUST.EDUCATE.THIS.GIRL.FURTHER!

[Kouign Aman]

I've been working my way thru this thread for days, laughing my head off. I feel so at home here....

When I was 10, I decided I wanted to try a glazed ham, never having had one. My folks had a small fully cooked ham in the fridge, so I carefully chose a recipe and made the glaze. I removed the printed plastic wrapper, rinsed the ham, then placed it in a pan. For over an hour, I lovingly and carefully basted it with glaze every 10 min. I will never again not notice there if there are TWO layers of plastic on the ham.

I will never again assume someone else knows how to use my oven: my girlfriend set it to bake, but didnt set the temp nob. The perfect-in-13-min cookies were charcoal. The oven had last been used to broil, and was set at 500.

I will never again (this makes its third entry in this delightful thread) lick the whipped cream off the power cord when it falls off the handmixer base into the bowl. I'm glad I'd bent my head down. that let gravity assist to stop the 'fun'.