I will never again . . . (Part 1)

[NeroW]

Did the old standby grab-the-hot-pan-handle today. Twice. And the old standby steam-burn-your-hand-while-checking-the-braise.

[agnolottigirl]

I just burned myself, too--am making this oven-fried chickpea thing that seems promising. Have been stirring occasionally with metal slotted spoon. (See earlier spatula fiasco--was very proud of remembering to use metal utensil to stir something that is cooking away at 400+ in the oven!) This last time, went to stir, couldn't find spoon. Hmm. Open oven. Ohh, there it is, that silly spoon!

Yes. Grabbed it with my bare little paw.

[fifi]

Mine still has my family giggling.....

Put all ingredients into KA stand mixer for cocoa based cake...lower head....plug it in...after not checking to see if mixer if off....

Suffice it to say that a KA mixer on 10 with 1 cup of dry cocoa powder creates a bit of a "cloud" if you will....nuff said....

Family still likes to remind me of the "brown snow" on my eyelashes....

Mark

This one still has me giggling. I remember my sister doing the exact same thing one time with powdered sugar. I think brown snow is funnier.

*prepare for gross-out* Venerable sister was getting over a cold at the time. She said that her post nasal drip was sweet for a few hours.

[Eric_Malson]

*prepare for gross-out* Venerable sister was getting over a cold at the time. She said that her post nasal drip was sweet for a few hours.

Are there really people with such a low gross-out threshold?

Just wondering.

[fifi]

It is the post nasal drip part that grosses me out. I get grossed out when I am in London, riding the underground, and when I blow my nose it is black. ICK!

[FistFullaRoux]

. . . forget which does what: baking powder or baking soda.

my first day on my first job as a bonafied chef I had to make a batch of baking powder biscuits. I will never forget those damn biscuits as long as I live. I always check and recheck and double check the powder jar for the soda jar. That was a bad day.

I did that last semester. I was studend-teaching a Baking 101 class. While preparing the Chef's Devil's Food Cake demo, I accidentally measured out baking powder instead of baking soda.

She used me as an example.

I will never again fall for the recipe known as Lemon Angels (or something similar) whose instructions require you to dissolve 3 tablespoons of flour in 1 cup of lemon juice. Then vigorously mix in 3/4 cup baking soda. The rest of the recipe is of no importance.

It was my first day working in a bakery. It's like an initiation. They told me to make a triple batch. There's just enough flour in there to make the bubbles big and sticky. I really didn't see it coming, even though I did pass chemistry in high school.

Who says people in pro kitchens have no sense of humor?

[bergerka]

I have two. One is me, one is my mom.

I will never again forget that one pound of honey does not equal two cups (16 oz, right?) of honey. Think about it for a minute. Them were some MOIST honey cakes.

Actually, they were delicious, but I couldn't figure out why it took me almost all of TWO five-pound containers of honey to make FIVE honey cakes, each of which contains - or is supposed to contain - a pound of honey!

And my mom will never again leave the turkey carcass simmering in water for stock, ask my sweet but very unconscious father to keep an eye on it and go to take a nap (this after being up all night). Dad sat down to read the paper and immediately forgot about the turkey for several hours...until mom came running out of the bedroom gasping and choking, grabbed the (on FIRE) pan and dashed outside with it.

He hadn't even notice the cloud of black smoke filling the entire house. It was days before the place smelled right.

K

Edited for dumbass spelling error.

Edited January 23, 2004 by bergerka (log)

[NeroW]

He hadn't even notice the cloud of black smoke filling the entire house.

Whoa.

[bigwino]

Last week I went to remove an electric burner element with my bare hand. I didn't know it was still on - medium high (ie. hot as hell, not red). The sizzling of my skin was really nasty.

The distance from the stove to the sink seemed very, very long.

Notes to self: 1) Check to see if element is on before touching. 2) Get gas stove.

[torakris]

gas stoves can be dangerous too!

last night I left my wooden spoon a little too close to a burner thatw as on high and went to look at some stuff on the computer. A couple minutes later walking past the kitchen on teh way to the bathroom I noticed flames shooting into the air, my spoon was on fire.

Second stupid thing:

Even after running the spoon under cold water for at least 10 seconds it is still extremely hot, so don't touch it just because it looks cool.......

[hathor]

I will never again share a bottle of wine with my husband before making dinner. Especially with a mandolin involved. I was making a pile of thinly sliced apples when my attention wandered and I now have a thinly sliced thumb.

wine and mandolins do not mix.

[sfmiller]

...reheat leftovers of a hominy gratin in the microwave, on high, uncovered and walk away. Now I know that what sounded like muffled gunfire in the kitchen was the hominy doing its imitation of popcorn.

If only it were as easy to clean off the microwave as popcorn.

[Suzanne F]

I am very pleased and proud to announce that last night, after taking the saute pan out of the oven and placing it on top of the stove, I did NOT grab the handle with my bare hand. This thread has pounded that into my consciousness as no burn ever did. Thank you all!

[bloviatrix]

I am very pleased and proud to announce that last night, after taking the saute pan out of the oven and placing it on top of the stove, I did NOT grab the handle with my bare hand. This thread has pounded that into my consciousness as no burn ever did. Thank you all!

Whoo-hoo!! Props to you!!

[dannyboy]

I will never again add 3/4 cup ground cayenne pepper to an already toasting dry spice mix in a very hot pan, creating hot pepper gas (or mace); blinding and sending house guests fleeing out the front door gasping for a breath on a freezing cold winter's day...

[bloviatrix]

I'm still shaking my head .....

I decided to make some brownies using the Alice Medrich recipe. All our metal bowls are in use, so I decided to use a pyrex one. The recipe calls for setting the bowl in a large saucepan of simmering water. So, I place the cocoa powder, sugar, etc. in the bowl, set in the pan, and turn my back to the rangetop to straighten up the counter. When I hear a crash. I turn around to see the bowl has exploded. There are shards all over the rangetop, the bowl is in shatters and the cocoa mixture is mingling with the water in the saucepan.

The worst part of the this is my just made chicken was sitting on the rangetop as well (I'm cooking for the sabbath). All the kosher places are closed so going to pick up a new chicken isn't an option. I've checked the chicken carefully and I think the shards missed it (I'll make it clear not to eat the skin just in case).

I think I've gotten everything cleaned up. I was able to get the contents of the saucepan and shards into a paper-lined plastic shopping bag. Then triple wrapped it. Hopefully, when the maintanance guys int he building handle the trash they won't get cut.

I feel like an idiot.

[agnolottigirl]

A twofer for the "I'm a moron" thread, both last night:

Put pan on burner. Noticed burning smell and smoke. Took pan off burner. Hmm--onion slice on burner. Put hand on burner. (This isn't quite as dumb as it sounds. We have one of those flat-top ranges, which leads me to my next magic trick.)

Still shaking head from last dumb moment. Finished cooking halibut. Removed pan from burner. Put plastic cutting board on burner.

Running fan, opening windows, to get rid of burned-plastic smell before husband (restaurant cook) gets home and makes fun of me. (And yes, I hid the dead cutting board under coffee grounds in the trash.)

[Cynthia G]

... allow my husband to decide that since the gas grill is still on we'll pre-cook the bacon for breakfast. On the roofed back porch. On high.

No, that wasn't the thing that turned him into an ex-husband a year later.....

[winesonoma]

Got a mandolin for Christmas and told my retired chef buddy about it. He said soup potatoes. What? Slice half and save the rest for soup. Girlfriend did provide a Kevlar glove with it though. Never lend knives; My knives are sharp you know, no problem I know knives;Then, you gotta first aid kit?

I also never pick anything near a stove up with my bare hands. Painfully learned lessons tend to stay with you

[jsolomon]

I will never again clean a self-cleaning oven using Easy-Off.

Yeah, so it's not hilarious. But, manual labor of that sort sucks.

[Toasted]

I will never again clean a self-cleaning oven using Easy-Off.

Yeah, so it's not hilarious. But, manual labor of that sort sucks.

Yes, I'm not looking forward to this chore tomorrow. My oven was

self-cleaning until 6 months ago when it got stuck in "cleaning mode" and

remained locked after the cycle was completed. I was having a little party

that night and needed the oven so I pried it open with a screwdriver. Now,

big suprise, the locking thingy is broken and the self-cleaning thing won't work.

A real shame because I didn't add enough cornmeal to the pizza peal and

instead of sliding nicely onto the stone, it got stuck and fell onto the bottom

of the oven.

[Marlene]

Test the top of a creme brulee with my index finger after it;s been sitting under a 500 degree broiler. One 2nd degree burn later..... (My torch is broken). The brulee was fine. I'm now typing one handed

[Mudpuppie]

(This isn't quite as dumb as it sounds. We have one of those flat-top ranges, which leads me to my next magic trick.)

My folks have one of those. (Or something similar. Their burners are rasied ceramic stuff.) I hate it. It retains heat for 15 minutes after you turn it off.

Living at home, I ruined so many of my mother's plastic bowls by setting them on a hot burner that she finally drilled it into my head that I needed to check the temp first.

So, in college, I did. Tapped the burner with two fingers. I heard my skin sizzle before I actually felt the pain.

Hate that stove.

[JohnnyLaw]

... grill chicken in pitch darkness.

The light was out on the porch. "Screw it, I know how long it should take to grill a chicken!"

I had never grilled chicken before. I was about 20 at the time, so I blame youthful ignorance that I didn't seek treatment for over a week - I thought I had "Stomache flu."

The macho foodie in me thinks it good to have gone through salmonella, but I still treat raw chicken like weapons grade anthrax in my kitchen.

[Dignan]

...preheat an oven with 5 beers hidden in it. This was technically my buddy's fault, 'cause he's the one that physically turned the knob on the oven to commence preheating, but I'll share some of the blame for two reasons: we both knew the beer was in there, and I sure as hell woulda eaten some of that pie he had inexplicably decided to bake.

Ssssssssssss!!!! Then: Bang!!!! Bang!!!!! Bang!!!!! Bang!!!!! Bang!!!!

Two perplexed 17 year olds pause in their pursuit of Nintendo, each getting to watch the comprehension spring into the other's eyes as we realize what has happened. Boy, it made a mess. Of course, the really odd thing was that we had five beers to our collective names and we weren't drinking them.

Another one: .... use a cylinder style combination grill/smoker. I was trying to slow cook some ribs and brisket. The thing was relatively new to me, and I was expirementing and ended up just loading the sucker with meat: ribs and brisket. I had my chips in there, water pan, etc., and got things going. But I was having trouble getting it to a good temperature, and fiddled around with the burner for a while. When I got comfortable with the temp, it started to rain lightly. The smoker was exposed to the elements, and the rain gets the temp to fluctuating again, so I mess around with it some more. The temp seemed to stabilize, the rain stopped and I think I've got things under control. Which means it's time for a little GTA:Vice City on the ol' Playstation 2. (Perhaps a pattern is emerging?)

So I'm upstairs creating all kinds of mayhem and havoc in Vice City, blissfully unaware that I'm creating a certain kind of mayhem and havoc downstairs in my own driveway. After some unknown period of time -- and it's easy to lose track of time when you are heavily involved in a game -- I checked on the smoker from the window, and saw that it was smoking grandly, though I had been thinking that a fresh infusion of chips would probably be called for by this time. So I went down to check on things first hand. Pulled off the dome and started quite the bonfire. The meat is burning, and the inside of the cylinder itself as well. The O2 provided by the lifted lid livened things further and now the outside of the cylinder is on fire, the paint bubbling up and burning off.

I hopped around and flapped my arms for a bit, but that didn't seem to help any. It occured to me that the propane tank was a scant few feet away and attached to the inferno with a rubber (and I'm sure flammable) feed hose, so I moved in and shut off the gas at the tank. But there didn't seem to be any hope of actually disconnecting the line without I get me some of my tools, like a crescent wrench. Besides, it was a tad warm that close to the thing. So at this point I go for the hose. Which obviously had to be in the front yard. Run around to the front, disconnect it, run back reconnect, moments later the fire's out and I have cheated death once again.

Ribs were crisped and brisket was charred, but that's okay because they were soggy too.