I will never again . . . (Part 1)

[Basildog]

I can't beleive I turned the oven on broil instead of bake!

I wondered why the top is so flat instead of rounded.

I blame this thread for undo influence .

We did this only 3 days ago.....pre-toasted bread anyone?

[BettyK]

...brine pork chops with all its fat using lots of sugar (1/2 C) and attempt to fry them in a skillet.

Almost burnt the house down

Twice is enough. Now off on the grill it goes or under the broiler

[mixmaster b]

I can't beleive I turned the oven on broil instead of bake!

I wondered why the top is so flat instead of rounded.

I blame this thread for undo influence .

We did this only 3 days ago.....pre-toasted bread anyone?

How about the time I broiled the CRAP out of my beautifully brined and perfectly seasoned Thanksgiving turkey? With my other-in-law visiting! (I swear I turned the knob to BAKE!!! )

(Lest anyone be unduly worried about this awful experience, I was able to get a new turkey and roast it up in time for the big party. The brined one actually survived the scorching enough to be sliced up and used as "garnish" around the second one.

)

[Fat Guy]

That reminds me of a dinner I once had at my aunt and uncle's house, wherein the chicken caught fire in the oven (it has never been determined why; perhaps the oven fire was unrelated to the chicken). My uncle emptied a whole fire extinguisher into the oven (a water-filled extinguisher, mind you) and successfully put out the flames (this after much discussion and instruction-reading, as none of us had ever actually used a fire extinguisher and it turned out there was a pin-like interlock that had to be disabled before spraying). As we prepared to order Chinese food, my aunt tasted the chicken for laughs and said, "Hey, this is pretty good." We all agreed it was exceptional chicken, so we ate it.

[Stone]

Accidentally put the chicken in the roasting pan breast side down. Take it out, stare at it a while with my roomate trying to figure out where the meat went, and die of embarassment when he turns it over. (I've since read that some people roast chickens breast side down claiming that the breast meat stays moister.

[ngatti]

...make mashed potatoes in a robotcoupe at high speed. 'Lessen somebody needs to repaper their kitchen.

[kpurvis]

Turn my back on scallops. Next time, the husband and son can set their own table and get their own drinks.

[Blue Heron]

Will never again put a lid on a pan of something I'm cooking that is just slightly smaller than the pan. The lid got stuck and I (along with 3 strong men) were never able to get the lid off again.

[Wilfrid]

Heat a glass of calvados in a microwave, then pour it into a very hot pan, justg to be really sure it catches fire. It really surely did.

[Stone]

Whilst in high school, just after Rosh Hashana one year, I walked home for a quick lunch. I put some matzoh ball soup on the stove, made a brisket sandwich, piled whatever was left of the kugel on my plate, and went down to watch t.v. Fat and tired from the sandwich and noodles, I walked back to school to finish my very important education. Luckily I was not in afterschool programs, because I sauntered home at 3:30 to find the soup pot glowing red and melted down on the electric burner.

Actually, I did that twice.

[sparrowgrass]

No matter how artfully you sprinkle it, cornstarch doesn't taste as good as powdered sugar on french toast. My nephew will never let me live that down.

[A Scottish Chef]

On a hot summers day in a small Highland Hotel, I was making my way from the cooking range to the sink with a 6 gallon pot filled with rice to be refreshed. I slipped, fell backwards and poured the scalding contents all over myself, the largest amount of the rice settling over my groin. Screaming, I leapt up and tore my apron and trousers off and headed for the sink.

Seconds later the boss's wife walked into the kitchen to find me half naked, surrounded by rice and splashing cold water onto my privates.

It looked, well, it didn't look good.

The moral of the story is that an apron can save your, um, life!

[Stone]

My sister once mistook schmaltz for applesauce.

[Stone]

. . . forget I put that bottle of wine in the freezer . . .

actually i just did that about an hour ago with a bottle of chimay

I once brought a six-pack of homebrew over to a professor's place for a dinner party and told her to pop it in the freezer for a quick chill. Oops, forgot about it.

Edited September 4, 2004 by Jason Perlow (log)

[Suzanne F]

Ah, Tommy -- you're a man after my own heart! I left the oven on all night, too. But in my case, it was loaded with a casserole of short ribs, another of veal stew, a third with lamb shanks. I can testify that if you soak it long enough, LeCreuset will clean up from just about ANYTHING burnt on.

[Marlene]

Forget to put the pot under the coffee maker....nothing like coming back to massive amounts of steaming coffee all over the counter and floor at 5am!!!

I did this over and over again, until I bought a coffee maker that wouldn't work until you put the pot under it. That was great, except I kept forgetting to turn the damn thing off. Coffee would burn down and then BAM, one exploded pot. After 6 exploded pots, I went out and bought a coffee maker that had to have the pot under it to work AND turned itself off after two hours.

[JAZ]

Well let's see...

There are the minor disasters like the first time I tried to puree hot soup in my blender, filling it almost full and spewing hot mushrooms all over the kitchen, or the time I tried to bake a sweet potato at high heat without pricking the surface and it exploded.

There was the time my mother asked me to whip up some egg whites into a meringue. I was in high school and not up on kitchen science, so I didn't realize that using a plastic bowl was not the thing to do. Even though the whites were not getting foamy I kept at it, thinking that if I started adding the sugar it would help. My mother finally came back into the kitchen and explained what the problem was. She wasn't upset or anything; we just started over. But she didn't realize that I'd already started adding the sugar, so she saved my failed attempt and added those whites to a big batch of scrambled eggs the next morning.

A more exciting disaster involved toasting some rice cakes on top of the toaster (don't ask) and forgetting about them until they burst into flame, igniting the roll of paper towels hanging above them, which then fell down onto the blender and melted it into an unrecognizable blob (actually, many kitchen disasters in our house involved trying to toast or broil things, which often caught on fire because no one in my family has ever had a single brain cell devoted to keeping track of what was in the oven. But that was the prize winner in that category).

But the best disaster story dates from when I was in junior high school. My mother was roasting cornish game hens for a dinner for some friends. The friends were in the adjacent living room; my sister and I were helping my mother in the kitchen. Mom took out the roasting pan filled with the hens in order to baste them, and set it on the open oven door (the oven was up at chest height, not underneath a range). Of course the door looked level but was not, so in the second or two she left it, the pan slid off, little birds bouncing everywhere and a couple cups of very greasy poultry juice following.

The floor was clean and the hens went back onto the pan, but the grease remained. My sister wanted to help, so she tried to get a rag to clean up. Unfortunately, the rags were on the other side of the grease spill, and as she leapt over it to get one, she miscalculated and hit the edge of the spill, losing her footing and sliding across the floor into the cat's dish, sending kibble flying in all directions. So there's my sister, sitting on the floor in a puddle of cornish game hen fat, surrounded by cat food. There's me, trying really hard not to laugh and not having any idea what to do to help. And there's my mother, swearing under her breath (which I had never heard her do before) while calling out to her guests that nothing was wrong and she'd be out to join them in a minute.

Mom managed to keep the guests out of the kitchen and we started to get the mess cleaned up. But when the potholder caught on fire (before this had all started, one of us had turned the wrong knob to heat up a burner --electric -- and enough heat was finally generated to ignite the potholder) I think she just gave up, poured herself a drink and joined her guests.

[Bond Girl]

Last year when I was on my malaysian cooking spree, I decided to make Nasi Goreng. Being too lazy to head into chinatown for Thai chili, I decided to use the scotch bonnet I found in the corner deli. Needless to say, the thing was so spicy that very few people can stomach more than a few forkful.

The other time, I decided to make madeleines, along with about three other items I have divided between the stove and the oven. In my effort to multi-task, I forgot to butter the madeleine pan, and ended up trying to scrape it cake out with a spoon.

[maggiethecat]

JAZ: An absolute classic. The cat food was a nice touch! In your mother's pumps, I too would have resorted to a stiff swig...probably from the bottle.

Sure beats mine. Nine pm. Six (by then) starving and drunk guests, including my husband's parents-in-law.

He had said previously that he would be in charge of dinner. He appeared, all cheery -like, with a leg of lamb. Frozen.

You have never heard such a deadly silence in your life.

(BTW, he fired up the grill, laid the lamb on it, and carved off crusty rare slices for everyone, a la minute. Gyros-style. It has gone into the family legend. And , however grudgingly, most say it was the best lamb they have ever eaten. So maybe not a disaster. But our marriage almost ended that night! )

[nerissa]

Once in college, when I was still living in the dorm, a friend and I decided to throw a dinner party. I had marinated chicken in tequila and lime juice, and had made a first course of yellow tomato sauce with capellini. As I was setting the table with pretty tulips, my friend was searing the chicken in the kitchen. The smoke alarm went off, but in the dorm, that was a nightly occurance. We didn't think it was because of us--kids smoking in the stairwell or a toaster. So we get a knock at our door and the Chicago Firemen come in to inspect. My immediate reaction was to offer them a glass of wine. "Nerissa!" My friend whispered. "You can't do that--they just got suspended for drinking on the job!" The fireman said no thank you, and were probably amused. I think I was written up, but I was moving out a month later.

There is the famous story in our family of my grandmother back when my parents had first arrived to town after living in Mill Valley. My grandmother wanted to give them an introduction dinner party. She was a lousy cook--but my grandfather was a wonderful cook--he could do succession after succession of Grand Marnier soufflees. Anyway, my grandmother had frozen scrapple that she inserted into these enormous onions. Well, the scrapple didn't thaw, but the onions burned. The onions were impossible to cut and they kept springing off the table. It proved to be a great ice breaker and my parents made fast friends with the guests.

Edited February 1, 2003 by nerissa (log)

[maggiethecat]

I had marinated chicken in tequila and lime juice,  and had made a first course of yellow tomato sauce with capellini.  As I was setting the table with pretty tulips

Nerissa: Pretty darn impressive for a dorm dinner! Oh, how I love tulips!

Thanks heavens for your father's souffles!

[torakris]

My mother has one of the worst stories. It wasn't all that particularly bad it was more the finale to a very bad vacation.

I t was late evening and we had just gotten back from the airport after our first (and last ) family airplane trip to Florida. The eight kids (ages 9 mos to 19) were hungry and my mother decided to heat up a frozen pizza. As the pizza was heating up my mother was thanking God the trip was over and we were finally home. The trip hadn't gotten off to a bad start when at 6:00 am in the morning as we where getting ready to leave Cleveland for Florida my mother accidently mailed the airline tickets instead of her Christmas cards. tehn there were the little things, my dad accidentally sitting on his reading glasses and my mother having to read the menu outloud to him at every single meal, my mother leaving her head lights on while we were at Disney World and having to get jumpstarted, twice.

The worst part was when she broke her nose trying to run through a sliding glass door (that she thought was open)trying to save a duck (which she thought was her son) from falling into the water.

Anyway the timer goes off the pizza is done, my mother opens the door to find the pizza hanging through the racks forming forming a burning cheese glop on the bottom of the oven. My brother rereads the directions on the pizza box and notices that my mom forgot the step where you cook the pizza on a cookie sheet for 15 minutes before transfering it to the rack for the last 5 minutes. She had just placed the frozen pizza directly on the rack.

[maggiethecat]

Kristin:

What a great, and unfortunately, completely credible story! Another classic.

And one that must come up when your family gets together. I want to meet your brother, the duck!

[torakris]

Kristin:

What a great, and unfortunately, completely credible story!  Another classic.

And one that must come up when your family gets together.  I want to meet your brother, the duck!

Trust me, this story gets replayed everytime there is a get together.

I have a feeling my mother may end up with it printed on her headstone!

[nerissa]

That story is hilarious, Kristin. Your mother sounds like a trooper.