I will never again . . . (Part 4)

[Lindacakes]

I have to admit I'm woozy after reading these stories.

When I was a child, I was making popcorn balls with my Dad. He was pouring the hot syrup and I was stirring. We managed to coordinate that so that he poured hot syrup over my finger. For years I had no knuckle, and thought of it as my "monster finger". You can tell if you look hard, and it's very sensitive. Oddly, it was a bonding experience as I got to see my Dad from a different angle and ditto for him. He referred to it recently -- I hadn't realized we never had popcorn balls or candied apples made at home after that.

I was a houseguest of a friend who had us over to her in-law's house in the country. She was unfamiliar with their very big stove and when she lit the pilot light, a giant flame whooshed out over her face. Her husband was frozen, and I grabbed her and brought her over to the sink where I pulled her hair out in hunks and held a cool towel on her face. I also held her hand in the hospital while the husband stood there, mute. Our friendship ended for unrelated reasons not long after that incident and I've often wondered what happened to that marriage.

A great aunt's clothing caught fire from her stove. She lived alone, and stood at the sink pouring glasses of water down her back. She died later, from the wounds.

Now that I've written these incidents in one place, I'm seeing why I'm not thinking kitchen accidents are amusing . . .

[David Ross]

This is the scene of the accident-sink full of dishes, no room in sink to place a colander to drain pasta. Cook decided to place colander on top of the dishes in the sink, knowing full-well that when he attempts to drain the pasta, the water and pasta will probably slop out of the colander--no where for the water to drain with all those dishes. He proceeds. Hot pasta and hot water splash out of sink and stream onto cooks feet. Covered with socks-(that act like a sponge)-the hot water burns the top of cooks feet. Dreadful.

[gfweb]

Cut myself on mandolines so many times I bought a Kevlar glove. Amazingly protective, now I can be a little careless when slicing.

A collapsible strainer with lots of unperforated rubber on its top half sloshed boiling water back up the handle and all over my hand when I drained a pot of pasta. Terrible design.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

[PopsicleToze]

This is the scene of the accident-sink full of dishes, no room in sink to place a colander to drain pasta. Cook decided to place colander on top of the dishes in the sink, knowing full-well that when he attempts to drain the pasta, the water and pasta will probably slop out of the colander--no where for the water to drain with all those dishes. He proceeds. Hot pasta and hot water splash out of sink and stream onto cooks feet. Covered with socks-(that act like a sponge)-the hot water burns the top of cooks feet. Dreadful.

Were you "Cook"?

[azurite]

Learned by cutting a few fingers & grating raw the same place twice on my index finger (did it the second time just after the skinned area had almost healed), that it's best to concentrate on what I'm doing and NOT replay in my mind whatever frustrating incidents might've occurred that day while I'm slicing & dicing veg or grating a chunk of Parmesan.

Had to grab the handle of a hot iron skillet a few times before it sunk into the more primitive parts of my brain that the handles of cast iron skillets get much hotter, burning hot as it happens, than that of my other pots, pans, skillets, so keeping something w/insulating properties (silicon pad, whatever) between my hand and the skillet handle is advisable.

[BarbaraY]

Lots of cuts, burns, etc during 45 years of cooking in various food service. The first time I went to the ER I was still very much a novice. Time to stone the grill at the end of my shift. I put too much fat on the grill and began scrubbing furiously. Needless to say that hot grease and stone crumbs went all over the back of my hand and wrist.

I rinsed it off with cold water and finished the job, signed out and started for home when I realized that my hand and arm were still burning and getting worse by the moment. ER was on my way home so that's where I went. Bandaged like the return of the mummy, I had to take several days off.

Never did do that again.

Same place, the chef had a tendency to tipple every night and often came to work still crocked. He was cutting up a roast turkey one day. He laid his knife across the thigh joint and slammed his hand down on it. The knife was blade upward. All I could do was grab his arm and try to stop the bleeding while screaming for the owner.

More blood than I ever saw or care to see again. Took, as I recall, 18 stitches.

[drago]

I will never again lean an unsealed sous-vide bag full of a liter of vanilla custard-base against the blender just for a second, while I split the vanilla bean, which I want to put in the bag as a last minute inclusion. No, in the future I will be sure to split the bean first, and put it in the bag first before pouring the extract in the bag.

I will never again attempt to pour liquid from one bag directly in another one, when the first attempt to seal goes wrong.

I learnt that cleaning up spilled custard base is surprisingly hard work, and a half liter of liquid can cover a surprisingly large area…

I wonder how long will the counter top smell of vanilla?

[Twyst]

Take a deep whiff of a Zaterains crab boil pouch.

Definitely clears the sinuses doesn't it!

[tmjst]

I will never again use a pastry bag to pipe chunky strawberry mousse into chocolate cups. The strawberry chunks clog the tip, and won't go through - no matter HOW hard you squeeze.

Little Cat Z could't voom all of the pink off the ceiling!

Edited June 3, 2011 by tmjst (log)

[onrushpam]

I will try never again to slosh water out of a pot into a cast iron skillet heating up to sear meat. I had a momentary thought... "Geez! I hope that doesn't catch fire!" WHOOSH! FLAME ON!

Thankfully, I had another empty skillet near to hand, which quickly smothered the 3 foot high flame.

No permanent damage done and DH proclaimed my dinner of Varkenshaas (skillet) and Brussels sprouts (pot) to be one of best efforts of late!

[FrogPrincesse]

I will try never again to slosh water out of a pot into a cast iron skillet heating up to sear meat. I had a momentary thought... "Geez! I hope that doesn't catch fire!" WHOOSH! FLAME ON!

Thankfully, I had another empty skillet near to hand, which quickly smothered the 3 foot high flame.

No permanent damage done and DH proclaimed my dinner of Varkenshaas (skillet) and Brussels sprouts (pot) to be one of best efforts of late!

On a related note, in the future I shall refrain from adding blanched and still wet vegetables (in my case, Brussel sprouts) to a very hot cast iron skillet to avoid redecorating my whole kitchen with grease!

[Justin Uy]

Never again will I try to sear anything with extra virgin olive oil!

Still clearing the smoke out

[Broken English]

Never again will I put icing sugar and flour into identical containers and not label them. Pasta and chantilly cream turned out rather disappointing.

Never again will I toast nuts without a timer set.

Never again will I ask a first year apprentice to strain the stock without expressly stating I need the liquid, not the bones.

Never again will I pick up a pot filled with scalding hot oil just emptied from the frier without announcing to everyone not to move, and double checking my surroundings.

Never again will I absent mindedly grab pans out of the oven with no cloth. Actually, that ones a lie, I totally will.

[kaszeta]

I've got several dishes that involve cooking something in the skillet, then roasting the whole skillet in the oven (usually at a very hot temperature), and then finishing the dish back on the stovetop. All too many times I've done this, neglected to put the handle cover on the skillet, and then absentmindedly grabbed the (friggin' hot) skillet handle and ending up with a massive 2nd degree handle-shaped burn on my palm.

I can say that "Never Again Will I Forget To Put The Handle Cover On The Hot Skillet", but I will forget. I know it.

[ScoopKW]

I've got several dishes that involve cooking something in the skillet, then roasting the whole skillet in the oven (usually at a very hot temperature), and then finishing the dish back on the stovetop. All too many times I've done this, neglected to put the handle cover on the skillet, and then absentmindedly grabbed the (friggin' hot) skillet handle and ending up with a massive 2nd degree handle-shaped burn on my palm.

I can say that "Never Again Will I Forget To Put The Handle Cover On The Hot Skillet", but I will forget. I know it.

Go to the hardware store and buy a pair of welding gloves - today. Welding gloves are one of those "hardware store solutions to cooking problems" that everyone should look at. Like microplane rasps, which most people have already embraced.

Welding gloves are SO much better than oven mitts. I can't imagine life without them, both professionally and at home. I have two pairs. One for work. One for home. And they're cheap. There is simply no downside to welding gloves.

If I could only bring two things to work, my choices would be a razor-sharp gyuto and a pair of welding gloves. If I could bring three, I'd add my OXO peeler. But I gots to have my welding gloves.

[Zeemanb]

May have already mentioned this one about 19 times....

I will never again clear the remnants of freshly ground chipotle powder from my spice grinder by blowing down into the chamber. My eyes made me look like a stoned Marty Feldman for the rest of the day. Bad stuff.

[Darienne]

Go to the hardware store and buy a pair of welding gloves - today. Welding gloves are one of those "hardware store solutions to cooking problems" that everyone should look at. Like microplane rasps, which most people have already embraced.

Welding gloves are SO much better than oven mitts. I can't imagine life without them, both professionally and at home. I have two pairs. One for work. One for home. And they're cheap. There is simply no downside to welding gloves.

If I could only bring two things to work, my choices would be a razor-sharp gyuto and a pair of welding gloves. If I could bring three, I'd add my OXO peeler. But I gots to have my welding gloves.

Absolutely brilliant!!!

[lindag]

Set my electric pressure cooker on my ceramic stove top (to save counter space) and accidentally bumped the knob turning the element to HIGH. Went outside to do something in the yard and when I returned the entire cooker was melted onto the burner...I was able to save the lid for whatever that was worth. I was also able to save the stove top; there was no discernable damage done and it actually cleaned up perfectly after a couple hours cool-down time and a bit of scraping with a paint scraper and some cleaner.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Put a honey-whole-wheat sponge on to fluff up, then go downtown for an errand that I think should take me only half an hour. Yeah, three hours later when I got home it had outgrown its 2 gallon bowl, popped the saranwrap cover, and gooped out onto my countertops. It was on its way to the floor, and I swear that if I hadn't gotten there then, it would have developed sentience....

Now of course I know that I can't go further than the corner store while a sponge is on.

[Justin Uy]

Ugh, so in a yet another "never again moment". I sous vide a ribeye with salt/pepper/cayenne and went to sear it off in a skillet with canola oil on high heat.

The smoke that was coming off it near the end of the sear was like pepper spray and had me hacking up a lung, I can only assume that was courtesy of the cayenne. Not going to attempt that again until I figure out that issue.

Did I do something particularly wrong here? I know I've seen seared meats with cayenne involved before, and none of them mentioned noxious fumes.

[teapot]

I will never again scrape and scrape away at a nutmeg without first ascertaining if it's a shelled nutmeg.

For a hilarious "never again" video moment, I highly recommend watching this you tube video of a guy attempting to fry gnocchi.[] Starts a little slow but stay with it...it's infectiously funny:

[Blether]

... fry gnocchi...

:laugh: what a good sport

[chefhenry]

I, for one, will never again agree to a catering gig in a "well equipped" kitchen without checking out said kitchen in person. Simple menu, only sixty guests or so for a friends wedding turned into the day from hell when the kitchen in the church basement turned out to be more poorly equipped, and not much bigger than, my home kitchen. Well equipped is quite the relative term I guess...

[Kouign Aman]

Note to self: full length gloves and a face shield have just become kitchen equipment. Check.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

I will never again put my little melamine butter bowl in the microwave for what I think is 30 seconds but what is really 3 minutes.

Yup - boiling butter everywhere, melamine has buckled and is now useless for anything but thumbtacks, had to scrub the microwave and the glass tray and everything else.