I will never again . . . (Part 2)

[Rehovot]

Don't make soup while wearing sandals.

Heck, don't fire up anything on the stove while wearing sandals. Ouch.

[andiesenji]

Don't make soup while wearing sandals.

Heck, don't fire up anything on the stove while wearing sandals. Ouch.

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Another foot-covering no-no while working on something with a lot of liquid and/or fat, are the Ugs boots, in particular a brand-new pair of $125.00 ice white high tops.

They are still wearable around the house but have been drastically changed by a splash of red-wine laden sauce when an odd shaped roast was turned without getting out the long forks. The darn tongs were not strong enough (or my grip wasn't strong enough) to hold it.

My very heavy sweat pants from Old Navy saved my legs but the boots have what looks like the map of Africa on one and an amoeba shape on the other.

I tried the Oxy stuff that is supposed to clean anything but no go on this one.

The shoe store tried to clean them but that red wine is there forever.

[Kevin72]

Don't make soup while wearing sandals.

Heck, don't fire up anything on the stove while wearing sandals. Ouch.

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I have a habit of cooking barefoot. Nothing bad yet but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before I'm firing up this thread . . .

[andiesenji]

Don't make soup while wearing sandals.

Heck, don't fire up anything on the stove while wearing sandals. Ouch.

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I have a habit of cooking barefoot. Nothing bad yet but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before I'm firing up this thread . . .

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I was glad I was wearing something this morning when I opened the fridge door and a jar of cherry peppers jumped off its shelf and exploded on the floor.

I KNOW for sure who was the last one to have the peppers out so left it for her to clean up.

I crunched through the shards of glass that were all over the floor, stepped out of my mocs at the door where the carpeting ends and left them to be cleaned also.

Yet another reason to consider carpet in the kitchen.

[Jake]

I will never again become immersed in eGullet while I have sweet potato biscuits in the oven. Can you say crispy? Have now resorted to cornbread for dinner instead and can still hear my SO laughing.

[jimkasch]

I was making a mushroom sauce to go with a roasted chix dish. I was in a hurry and needed to thicken the sauce with a slurry and reached for the cornstarch. Unfortunately the cornstarch box closely resembled the box of baking soda that was also on the shelf.

Let's just say it didn't turn out as expected.

[purplewiz]

I keep promising myself I'm going to take the time and get a real pot holder and move slowly and carefully whenever I have to take something hot out of the oven. (Which begs the question, do you ever take anything cold out of the oven? But I digress.)

Instead, I keep grabbing whatever towel is handy, which always dangles down and contacts the heating element in the bottom of the oven, then smolders and/or burns. And I move quickly, so my hand, which is properly covered and protected at the top of the swoop, always end up with some critical part exposed when contact is made with the hot pan, as my latest blister will show.

It would annoy me less if I didn't at least TRY to protect my hands.

Marcia.

[mhadam]

I was making a mushroom sauce to go with a roasted chix dish. I was in a hurry and needed to thicken the sauce with a slurry and reached for the cornstarch. Unfortunately the cornstarch box closely resembled the box of baking soda that was also on the shelf.

Let's just say it didn't turn out as expected. 

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I did that too. I DESTROYED a perfect shepard's pie filling. The hours of stewing, sweating, seasonsing all wasted. Couldn't salvage it; I was crying when I threw it out.

*sigh*

[Grub]

A friend of mine once forgot to put the lid back on the BBQ. It was windy that night, and the cinders caused a fire that nearly burned down the apartment complex... No one noticed until the neighbors came running, hollering and waving fire extinguishers around -- we opened the door to the balcony, and the flames were up above the roof. It was an extremely frightening, and disturbing sight. Eventually, we did manage to put the fire out, but whoa, it really was touch-and-go for a while.

Then, fire brigade arrived. While the fire seemed to be out, they obviously had to make sure, and so started tearing the wall apart with fervor (to the great distress of the poor dude who lived there) -- I got the impression that perhaps it had been a long time since they had a chance to do their job... A really young looking fireman came running, hauling a huge chainsaw, and we collectively groaned, and asked if they were really gonna have to use a freakin' chainsaw? Oh no, there won't be any need for that, replied a gray-haired fireman -- obviously the chief of the crew -- the young fireman looked completely crest-fallen. However, the moment the chief left the scene, he fired that thing up and went to town...

This cute, female firefighter strolled in and dumped a tank and a mask on the floor -- I thought this was pretty cool and just couldn't help myself (besides being a complete dork): "Whoa, ah, you're a smoke diver, uh?" She looked at me deadpan and replied, "No. I'm an attic-monkey." Then she climbed up into the attic, dragging a big sledgehammer behind her, and started beating the ever-living crap out of the wall. This was a petite woman, but you'd think there was an 800lb gorilla on PCP having a bad day up there.

A bit later, two guys are pulling like mad, trying to bring the rain-gutter down... The chief returns, steps onto the balcony, and takes his helmet off to wipe the sweat from his brow, and -- *CLOINK* -- the gutter comes crashing down, on the chief's non-helmeted head... The two who pulled it down immediately started trying to lay the blame on the other guy, sounding like complete jackasses: - "Way to go, man, just ripping it down like that!" - "Oh yeah, way to go not giving a warning, dude!" Freakin' Keystone Firefighters. Oh, and Keystone BBQ-ers too, I guess...

Moral of the story -- put the lid back on, and don't leave anything near the BBQ, like bags of coal and suchlike.

[Hector]

Don't put cognac on deep fried fish and flame it up! As one of my friends did. He was looking for some new culinary treats, but he was very drunk at the time (it was at a party). so what happen did happen, and the result on the plate was DISGUSTING

[racheld]

You know how great a nice big honey/brown sugar-rubbed baked ham is? And how delicious smoked turkey becomes when honey butter is rubbed over it, and melted honey/butter is injected into the meat before smoking for several hours? Great ideas, right?

Do not, on your life, try this with a turkey you intend to deep-fry.

My husband is the world's greatest outdoor cook. He can grill anything, smoke it, pit barbecue it, deepfry it on all burners, but his talent fell prey to an error in judgement several years ago when he figured one is good and a combination will be even better.

He melted the butter and honey, added spices and herbs and inoculated that turkey like it was traveling to a third-world country. And if you've hit every muscle once, and STILL have some of the liquid left, better use it up.

That turkey went into that hot oil with a rumble not heard since Pompeii. It roiled up and almost out of the pot, subsiding just enough to lull him into a false security which lasted about ten minutes. That thing cooked FAST. The scent of burning cookies wafted into the house, and I opened the back door just in time to see a Cajun-blackened bird emerge magically from a pot which should have produced a golden, honey-fried one.

Great clumps of char littered the surface; big black pocks sank into the flesh all over that bird---it looked like Tim Burton's Thanksgiving. As it started to cool just a teensy bit, the blackened drumsticks crumbled with little tik-tik sounds, falling like hunks of coal onto the plate. The wingtips, which had not been injected but were somehow contaminated by heat or transfer, fell into crisp ashes at the touch of a finger.

At least I think that's what it sounded like. I was laughing too hard to hear it.

The salvageable flesh was delicious---reminded me of that esoteric recipe for baking a whole truffle inside a potato buried in hot coals...then you throw away the charred potato and eat the truffle. One of those never-again experiments, an expensive, too-much-work venture for ten ounces of meat. And five years of teasing.

rachel

[fifi]

racheld . . . I have yet to recover from the fried turkey story. I have tears running down my face. The tik-tik sounds from the drumsticks is where I lost it.

Two things to avoid when frying turkey as far as injectables and/or coatings . . . water and sugar. Butter has water in it and you shouldn't use it unless clarified. And honey is . . . basically sugar and water.

[AnnieD]

I will never again put anything under the broiler to brown while reading this very topic. Oh, the irony! And all that beautiful cheese, charred beyond recognition. But I'm still eating it.

[Logrus9]

I have 2 especially memorable ones. When I was about 12 I was toasting a bagel in the oven since our toaster wasn't wide enough. Watching tv I forgot about it until I saw smoke rolling down the hallway. I ran into the kitchen and pulled the completely charred black lump out and threw it in the garbage, then opened up the windows. About 5 minutes later I'm still seeing smoke, walk back to the kitchen to find flames shooting out of the garbage can all the way to the ceiling. I had successfully created charcoal. Luckily the sprayer from the sink was able to reach the fire. Charred the wall, pantry, ceiling and melted the plastic garbage can.

Last year, made hardboiled eggs for lunch and brought them to work. I prefer them with the yolk just solidified, but not dried out and crumbly. Unfortunately, after peeling them I realized that the yolks were runny so I put them in the microwave for about 30 seconds. They looked fine, but when I bit into one it literally exploded in my mouth and I had superheated egg yolk scorching my tongue, lips, roof of my mouth, cheeks. Luckily I was able to block it from searing my throat, but had to spit it out in front of a cafeteria full of people. Those burns hurt like hell for a week and it's the last time I ate a hardboiled egg.

[RETREVR]

Use a pastry tip without cleaning it myself.

Today I had a very limited amout of creme fraiche to pipe onto canepes for a party. I put it into the pastry bag with a fine star tip and proceeded to pipe-out blue creme.

It looked lovely with the salmon.

[BonfireCuisine]

Ah 14 the magical age -

Me - 14 first apprentice, I put 5 gallons of clam chowder into the freezer only to come back the next day to defrost it. The problem was that I need a bowl of it - now - so image trying to pick axe a bowl of chowder out of a 5 gallon bucket.

Forward 20 some odd years - my son 13, I had forgotten to tell him that the new microwave works well. My son put a frozen burrito in the microwave for the "normal" 10 mins like in the old microwave but since the microwave was new he really only need 1 min. Lets just say to my wifes surprise while she was working out in the yard when the fire trucks started showing up. Apparently the fire alarm went off, thus calling the fire department - he'll never do that again.

Jason

[Marmish]

I keep promising myself I'm going to take the time and get a real pot holder and move slowly and carefully whenever I have to take something hot out of the oven. (Which begs the question, do you ever take anything cold out of the oven? But I digress.)

Instead, I keep grabbing whatever towel is handy, which always dangles down and contacts the heating element in the bottom of the oven, then smolders and/or burns. And I move quickly, so my hand, which is properly covered and protected at the top of the swoop, always end up with some critical part exposed when contact is made with the hot pan, as my latest blister will show.

It would annoy me less if I didn't at least TRY to protect my hands.

Marcia.

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Just the dirty dishes I shove in there when people are dropping by.

Also happy to report I haven't done anything stupid in the kitchen lately. I'm sure it'll happen any day now.

[fifi]

. . . . .

Just the dirty dishes I shove in there when people are dropping by. 

. . . . .

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This practice is not without peril. I may have reported this before but, we are on page 33 after all.

I had family visiting and one evening we broiled fish filets. After serving, the broiler pan went back into the oven and was promptly forgotten for the next three days as other excursions intervened. On about the fourth day, there was this "whiffage" in the kitchen that was noticed at breakfast. OMG! What a mess. It was so bad that we were sure that we would never forget that mistake. Wrong. We did it again about a year later at my sister's house.

[Tepee]

In pottery class, twisted bowls with curled rims are considered arty. I made one melamine bowl just like that when I steamed food in it as a newly-wed out to impress with what little cooking skills (?) she had.

[racheld]

My hubby made gorgeous chive-and-gravlax scrambled eggs last week, made creamier by the addition of extra-rich Coffeemate.

French Vanilla Coffeemate.

[chefworks91]

Pour a 20 litre bucket of Mild cheddar soup into our steam pot to reheat for a banquet without making sure to check the drain tap...yup, 20 litres down the drain.

[andiesenji]

I absolutely will never again walk into the kitchen at dusk, without turning on the lights, and pick up a tube of "hand cream" without looking at the tube.

I have been scrubbing for five minutes to get the wasabi paste off my hands. Burns like the dickens and the fumes are making my nose run and my eyes tear.

My housekeeper left it out after taking some to have with sushi she brought home before I came home.

(I don't eat sushi so rarely use the wasabi.)

[Chris Amirault]

Well, at least you can be glad that you didn't mistake it for toothpaste!

[snowangel]

At least four times a month, I put a pan with a long handle on the oven. Every time I put it in, I lay potholders on the counter. I remind myself every time to pick up potholders before removing pan. At least twice a month, I forget the potholders.

But, I wonder why I always remember the potholders when it is a casserole or something with little tiny handles, and never remember them when the handle is long.

[Chris Amirault]

At least  four times a month, I put a pan with a long handle on the oven.  Every time I put it in, I lay potholders on the counter.  I remind myself every time to pick up potholders before removing pan.  At least twice a month, I forget the potholders.

But, I wonder why I always remember the potholders when it is a casserole or something with little tiny handles, and never remember them when the handle is long.

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A thought. Maybe you should scrunch some aluminum foil around the handle before you put it in, so that you'll pause before you grab it.