I will never again . . . (Part 1)

[indiagirl]

i was making flour dumplings (indian style) that cook in a gravy. bit of four, pinch of baking soda, spices, etc.

when i was done, i figured my dumpling to gravy ratio was not what i wanted so i decided to make more dumplings, running slightly late, bit of a hurry, baking soda and flour in similar mason jars, made another batch with baking soda and a pinch of flour.

did not realise this until i served dinner - one dish meal too. rice and gravy with dumplings.

we spent the entire dinner figuring out how to idenitfy bombs from the good dumplings without actually biting into them. it was entertaining. :|

my baking soda sits in a very very different looking jar now.

[guajolote]

...try to make menudo.

Even my dog refused it.

Added a little too much Ricky Martin, huh?

[KNorthrup]

Was making a birthday cake for a family friend. German chocolate from a box. That was the request. Hand mixer was older than I was and the cord was removable from the base (why?). Due to age or general bad engineering, the cord also tended to fall out of the base unasked. And did so into the batter. I pick it up and hey -- it's something with batter on it. Pop it in my mouth. Other end of course is still plugged into the wall. Oh and I had braces at the time.

[nightscotsman]

Was making a birthday cake for a family friend.  German chocolate from a box.  That was the request.  Hand mixer was older than I was and the cord was removable from the base (why?).  Due to age or general bad engineering, the cord also tended to fall out of the base unasked.  And did so into the batter.  I pick it up and hey -- it's something with batter on it.  Pop it in my mouth.  Other end of course is still plugged into the wall.  Oh and I had braces at the time.

Wow, I actually know exactly how that feels. I still have the scar from my incident, which wasn't food-related, so I won't bore everyone with the story. Let's just say I was blond when I was a child.

[torakris]

I had a huge no-no in the kitchen yesterday that resulted in the evacuation of my family from my house!

I was making the Thai grilled chicken recipe from the latest Fine Cooking and even though I had a large bottle of the sweet chile dipping sauce in the refrigerator I decided to make the one include in the recipe.

The first step is to place crushed chile pepers in a small dry sauce pan and heat over high heat for 1 to 2 minutes.

I stuck them in a flimsy litttle saucepan turned on the high heat and then WALKED AWAY FROM THE STOVE! A couple of minutes later, I smelled burning and rushed to the kitchen, being the fool that I am, I picked up the pan and brought it up to my face to get a closer look at it. The fumes almost knocked me off my feet and sent me into a coughing fit so bad I honestly thought I would cough up a lung. suddenly i heard my husband and son (in a different room in the house start coughing, then I heard my two daughters and their friends, who were playing outside right below the stove vent's exit vent, start coughing. W e quickly closed the doors to all the rooms we could, open every window and turned on every ceiling fan, we then took the kids for a small walk to the local bookstore. We returned an hour later with the smell still lingering, but the worst of it gone.

I did go on to make the sauce again (over very low heat) and it turned out great!

[Smarmotron]

Fry 2 tbsp of red pepper powder in hot oil, and lean over and take a deep sniff.

[gsquared]

Keeping cornflour and icing sugar in identical containers and gaily sifting cornflour over my oh so beautiful chocolate crepes........

[Richard Kilgore]

Many years ago... I was baking a bunch of loaves of banana bread or some such for the first time. As I added the wheat flour to the rest of the ingredients in the large bowl, time stopped as I watched wheat berries, not flour, pour into the mixture. Ever try to get wheat berries out of a batter?

[jersey13]

I will never again beat hot sugar syrup into cold eggs when making my buttercream. Can we say "rock candy?'

[malachi]

Now that I've stopped crying and can breathe again...

1) I will never, ever again dose and tamp espresso into the portafilter and stick it into the group head and start the machine without first checking to make sure the actual filter is still in the mallet (9 atmospheres pressure + 195 degree water + finely ground coffee + directional spout = weapon banned by the Geneva Convention).

2) I will never, ever again leave my knife roll at work, out in the open or where anyone else can find it.

3) I will never, ever again roast a chicken without checking the cavity first (why the hell would anyone wrap the giblets etc in plastic anyway?).

[KNorthrup]

Okay, these were beginner things, but warn your kids against them:

-- making toffee and stirred with a rubber spatula (to better scrape down the sides).

-- making toffee and we were out of butter so (all previous experience being cookies) substituted butter flavour crisco.

-- making mocha cookies and knew brewed coffee was better than instant so ground up beans instead of using powder. mmm, crunchy.

-- oh and forgetting to properly prep asparagus before turning it into cream-of soup and the whole family flossing their teeth with each bite. and that's when it was $12 a bunch and only available for about four weeks a year.

[NeroW]

I will never again carry my knives, rolled in my apron, inside my backpack, and then frantically reach into my bag on the train for my ringing cell phone:

"Oh! It's the cute guy from culinary school . . . F***! It's my French knife, meeting the palm of my hand."

What the hell. It's met every other part of my hand.

Edited June 2, 2003 by NeroW (log)

[Random Alias]

I will never again . . .

...eat a steak that has been unrefrigerated for a indeterminate amount of time.

When I was in college I had a mini fridge whose electrical outlet shared duty with several other small appliances. Came home from class one day to find it unplugged, and figured, "Damn, I better eat that steak before it goes bad."

Yeah, it smelled a little funny, tasted a little funky, but I was 18, poor, and stupid. No way was that steak going to waste. It only took a few hours before I knew something wasn't quite right - my stomach was in serious gurgle mode, with major chills accompanying each grumble. It wasn't much longer before I knew something was very wrong - I'll leave those symptoms to your imagination.

There's nothing more fun than a serious case of food poisoning during your freshman year in a dorm. On the positive side, I was able to skip about a week's worth of classes without any guilt.

[paul o' vendange]

Can second the flaming Grand Marnier. When I was 12, making a "Grand Dinner" for my extended family, concluded with Crepes Suzette. Didn't know not to heat the butter/orange sauce up to super-heated, then toss the grand marnier in the chafing dish, allow to come to boil (almost instantaneously), then set a match and WHOOF - off goes my eyebrows, a good part of my front-locks...kept my cool, though - dripping flames across the floor as I carried the chafing dish away from the crowd, trying to pretend all part of the show...

More recently, several years back, made a demi-glace, my partner (my wife) and I doing biweekly prix-fixe dinners and sharing the kitchen with another outfit - we had a "bankruptcy dinner" to do, a noted Chicago Corp. going under, wanted to do so in good style by ordering a "Surf and Turf" at $70 (including two plates of Striped Bass with Red Pepper Coulis and Filet with Sauce Financiere), not labeling the cooled demiglace - which had been on shelf 2 of the walk in, now on shelf 3, sharing the shelf with the similar-looking balsamic vinaigrette - and we made a very gelatinous/savory set of salads before catching it and correcting...appreciated the fine art of labelling ever since...

[torakris]

wet oven mitts DO NOT insulate at all!

My hands are still in pain!

[NeroW]

wet oven mitts DO NOT insulate at all!

Word.

[elyse]

A guy in my bread class got really angry at me for telling him not to use a three fold wet papertowel to take a pan out of the oven. Dork.

[Suzanne F]

Dork.

Word.

[elyse]

Timers will NOT remind you 'in just a second.'

[bloviatrix]

My stomach hurts from laughing so hard.

I will never again....

...reach for something in the cabinet about the stove while the front burner is on, setting myself on fire.

...shake cayenne pepper into gazpacho whithout verifying that the shaker is firmly attached to the jar.

...place a shallow casserole into the oven bare handed, only to brush the side of my hand against the oven rack, thereby dumping all contents of a noodle kugel over the hot oven.

And then there's my husband, who while making hard boiled eggs, fell asleep and proceeded to let all the water boil out. I returned to an apartment that stunk like burnt rubber, plus the loss of a brand new Calphalon pot.

[NeroW]

A guy in my bread class got really angry at me for telling him not to use a three fold wet papertowel to take a pan out of the oven.  Dork.

There's "being in a hurry," and then there's "being a dumb-ass."

The other day, during a Baking practical (easy, right?: 6 chocolate chip cookies, 6 biscuits, and pastry cream), this kid in class pan-sprayed the baking sheet that had his cookies on it.

Of course, his 6 cookies turned into One Big Cookie.

Rather than just START OVER (we had like 2 hours left), he STOLE the CHEF'S perfect 6 cookies off the rack and presented them to her as his own.

Where is the *slapping-forehead-with-hand* emoticon? She hollered loudly enough to be heard in the basement kitchens.

[Jinmyo]

Rather than just START OVER (we had like 2 hours left), he STOLE the CHEF'S perfect 6 cookies off the rack and presented them to her as his own.

Where is the *slapping-forehead-with-hand* emoticon?  She hollered loudly enough to be heard in the basement kitchens.

Egad. A few maki short of a sushi platter that lad.

[NeroW]

Rather than just START OVER (we had like 2 hours left), he STOLE the CHEF'S perfect 6 cookies off the rack and presented them to her as his own.

Where is the *slapping-forehead-with-hand* emoticon?  She hollered loudly enough to be heard in the basement kitchens.

Egad. A few maki short of a sushi platter that lad.

That's one way to put it.

That's not how the Chef put it, but . . . it's along the same lines.

[tryska]

fry in my undies.

or use white lily flour for anything other than biscuits.

Edited August 12, 2003 by tryska (log)

[Callipygos]

I will never decide make a recipe that calls for raw lobster because I live under the misconception it is as easy to remove from the shell as COOKED lobster.

Hell, I'm just never going to make Dublin Lawyer again. Ever. Or anything else that requires I kill a live lobster by stabbing it in the back of the neck.

Nor am I going to eat bacon without being sure it's sufficiently cooked.

...Actually, the best kitchen disaster story I've heard concerns the sister of a friend -- my friend says one day the family was out on an errand, and her sister was at home making a cake. They came home to find the poor girl scraping burnt cake OFF THE WALLS OF THE OVEN, for somehow the cake had exploded during baking. She paused, looked over her shoulder at everyone, and levelly said, "I DON'T want to talk about it."

To this day, years later, anytime someone asks her, "So what did happen, anyway?" She STILL says, "I DON'T want to talk about it."