I will never again . . . (Part 3)

[Anna Friedman Herlihy]

Speaking of towels (and tablecloths and napkins)--don't ever make the mistake I did. We have two giant black furry dogs. We bathe them at home. We have dedicated "dog towels" for drying them off. Somehow, one got in a load of white tablecloths, dishtowels, and napkins. Several years later, I still find black hairs embedded in the linens! Luckily our dinner guests don't mind.

[judiu]

Know your oven door. My oven door is a lazy laid back beast -- I press it down, and it stays there.

My mother's oven door is snappy and springy. I pushed it down to remove a pan of something or other and it slammed shut on me. I swear I heard a sizzle.

I'm now wearing a scar the size of an extra large egg yolk on my right forearm. It's not a regular scar, that might fade in time. I  cooked myself. They area feels firm and tight, like a seared strip steak.

(I showed  the original bubbling pustulating mess to the pharmacists at the nearby drugstore. They -- no kidding -- screamed.)

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Silvadine is the best stuff in the world for burns. It's by prescription only, and expensive as hell, but that's what the dr's gave my late husband every time he got burned with roofing tar.

[infernooo]

Try the "microwave poached" eggs. 4 Exploded eggs and half an hours cleanup disagree with how easy it is supposed to be according to the microwaved poached eggs thread.

[Rose&Thorn]

... absent-mindedly strain stock by placing a colander in the sink and pouring it all down the drain

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I did that the first time I made fish stock - I feel your pain.

Rose&Thorn

[Rose&Thorn]

I will never again use my mandolin without the guard. Lost the top skin and flesh off 3 fingers and my thumb - ouch. Very hard to explain to people when you are delivery food for a function that they should not worry you found all the pieces!

Rose& Thorn

[hummingbirdkiss]

I absolutely will never again have a microwave over my stove ..I dont get that thinking and am not sure why it was there to begin with ...especially for someone my height this is not a good idea!!!

..my husband moved it for me the second time my Tshirt caught on fire

[zeffer81]

not mine but I'm sure the culprit will never again put his socks in the microwave to "warm them up."

[stephle]

Not give full, undivided, complete attention to the pan while cooking caramel.

Last Thanksgiving I got a matching 2nd degree+ burn which matched the one I got years prior for not heeding my own advice.

Funny, you'd think spilling 300 degree boiling hot sugar on your hand once would be enough to never repeat it again.

Guess some of us aren't that smart.

[Smithy]

not mine but I'm sure the culprit will never again put his socks in the microwave to "warm them up."

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Uhm, OK, help me with the story, please! What happened? I take it the socks were dry?

Not give full, undivided, complete attention to the pan while cooking caramel.

Last Thanksgiving I got a matching 2nd degree+ burn which matched the one I got years prior for not heeding my own advice.

Funny, you'd think spilling 300 degree boiling hot sugar on your hand once would be enough to never repeat it again. 

Guess some of us aren't that smart.

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I haven't burned myself making caramel, but the first time I tried making it I found myself thinking "Funny, the instructions didn't describe these white streaks developing," and wondering why not, when I realized that my mother's spatula was getting shorter.

I will never again make caramel without a silicone spatula, or a similarly heat-proof stirring utensil.

[Pierogi]

Funny, you'd think spilling 300 degree boiling hot sugar on your hand once would be enough to never repeat it again. 

The 2nd worst thing I've done to myself in the kitchen involved swirling hot caramel around the bottom of a small ramekin for individual flans. I swirled, thinking the whole time "I've got to be really careful, this stuff is REALLY hot.....", and the caramel lept right out over the edge of the ramekin and down my left middle finger. Left quite a nice little divot for quite some time..

The 1st worst thing involved 6 stitches......

[GTO]

When you burn your finger like that, everyone does the same little dance. You know the one, that kind of speedy foot jive, followed by the Michael Jackson spin.

Edited August 1, 2007 by GTO (log)

[nonblonde007]

LOL! That, and sticking your finger Immediately in your mouth, going owye, owey, owey..................

[alanamoana]

LOL!  That, and sticking your finger Immediately in your mouth, going owye, owey, owey..................

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which isn't a good idea with hot caramel because then you burn the inside of your mouth...

[miladyinsanity]

LOL!  That, and sticking your finger Immediately in your mouth, going owye, owey, owey..................

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which isn't a good idea with hot caramel because then you burn the inside of your mouth...

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It's a vicious cycle.

Because then you think "I'm never going to do this again"...but you do.

[sparrowgrass]

I promise to never again leave a warehouse size bag of chocolate chips on the counter next to the pressure canner full of jars of salsa.

I have now have a warehouse size bag of chocolate chip. One BIG chip.

[judiu]

I promise to never again leave a warehouse size bag of chocolate chips on the counter next to the pressure canner full of jars of salsa.

I have now have a warehouse size bag of chocolate chip.  One BIG chip. 

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Oh, just take a hammer to it! Chocolate chunks are good, too!

[Fritdjof]

I don't think I'm allergic really, since I eat it all the time, but I did itch the corners of my eyes right after handling some dungeoness crab in a very nice restaurant. My eyes swelled 95% shut. It's a pretty hot look.

[CdnLifeguard]

I will never again sneak a piece of scalloped potato from the pan and shove it in my mouth without testing how hot it is.

Now have a blister on my chin and on my lips from the burn that I got.

That'll teach me not to wait!

[Sony]

Welcome Fritdjof and CdnLifeguard!

Ah lessee....I'll never again:

-microwave a thick soup at work without a cover of some sort (might as well have been a raw egg with the explosion that sucker made!) People actually came out of their offices to see what had happened ....so I might not be microwaving thick soups at work, period.

-set down a plastic cutting board on an electric stove coil without checking to see if it is warm. The board still bears a scar......

-set down a plastic sugar canister on an electric coil without checking to see if it is warm first. Actually, I didn't do this, a friend did, but her tales about having to clean up that mess have set me straight!

-think it'll be just fine to transport a canister of cocoa with a snap-on lid without a plastic bag. Did this in grad school- had class all day, and was going straight to a friend's house afterward to make a birthday cake. Of course, I was smart enough to bring my own good cocoa powder....but dumb enough to just throw it in my backpack, where it would get tossed around all day with my books, notebooks, etc.

When I unzipped my bag at about 10 PM, there was a big POOF!!....and there I was, standing in a brown haze, with my friend's small kitchen literally COVERED in fine brown dust. Not to mention all of my schoolwork and the other contents of my bag....

Cocoa powder is quite fine and can reach amazingly obscure places. And the birthday cake was vanilla that year .

[SundaySous]

I will never again work with a crystal meth head. This guy was truly ahead of his times. 1978 and his life revolved around crystal meth. Gods' gift to cooking. The management liked him, "he's got a lot of energy."

I had just unwrapped a pound of butter getting ready to clarify it. The man picks it up and throws it into the deepfryer. POOF! Brilliant orange flame all the way to the ceiling, no exhaust hood here. The sound, it was like a roar.

You could see the service window from the bar and they must of seen plenty. The panic started in the bar and I guess carried over to the dining room because everybody left, in a hurry.

He used all that special energy of his to run like hell and leave us with the mess. He was like that.

Few months later I run into this guy and I get around to asking him what was he thinking that night. "I was just f*cking with you." He goes on to say he thought fat was fat and didn't know that would happen.

To be honest though I didn't know you couldn't deepfry butter either.

[sazji]

Funny how so many of these are just so obvious.... I will never again use my Krups coffee grinder to grind anything other than coffee. I was trying a recipe that takes two tablespoons of "menengiç," a local little "nut" for lack of a better word, in the same family as pistachios. They are dry but oily. My spice grinder was broken. So what the hell I said...already having an inkling that it probably wasn't the best idea I'd had. Whirrr...out came one tablespoon of...not powder but paste, sort of like toothpaste out of a tube. And it was black, because it was full of coffee dust. So I decided to "clean" the machine by putting coffee through again. Out came...coffee paste, a combination of ground coffee and all the oily gook that had remained on the grinder wheels. It took a good half cup of coffee through there before I stopped getting odd, resinous-flavored coffee.

(P.S. I am not a crystal meth head...)

[hummingbirdkiss]

I will never again put a vanilla bean in salt and then put it in a jar that looks like the sugar jar

[eskay]

In the vein of stupid mistakes with sugar syrup, I will never again while cooking down berries tip the pot to get a better look and slop berries and sugar syrup on the hot element below

[Morten]

Used a fork to fry some meet and veggies on my pan..then i used the fork to plate it and after that (forgetting it wasnt a spoon) i put it back in the pan (still very hot). Then use the next couple of minutes to plate the rest of the dish, when i suddenly noticed the fork with some small bites of what looked as pure heaven.

By a mixture of greed and homer like joy i took the fork, but it in my mouth. Tonque, lips and all wrapped fully around it, when it hit me. Physically as mentally... HOT HOT HOT METAL IN MY MOUTH!

Ill never do that again..

Another one - A small can of tomato puree left in window on a hot hot summerday - aah got to use that. When made the first hole with the canopener a fine steam of hot tomato puree was hitting the sealing and in my confusion and to emense joy of my mates over for dinner i started to fumble it.

Tomato all over the kitchen...great fun

[prasantrin]

I will never again put a vanilla bean in salt and then put it in a jar that looks like the sugar jar

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Deja vu!

You and my mother must be long lost twins or something....