Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Kitchen Nightmares

Today’s post was inspired by my friend Renata, who at the age of 36 looks like she is in her early twenties. If I wouldn’t like her so much I would hate her with a passion just because of that *lol*. Just the other day she wanted to play the lottery and was asked for an ID. They thought she was younger than 18. So unfair. But Renata takes it all in her stride and she is cool. Cool as a breeze. She is heavily into Martial arts and kicks ass in sports as well as real life. She is also a little caffeine junkie. Now the email she sent me this morning almost made me lose control over my bladder and water come out of my nose.

She got home in a hurry and didn’t have a minute to spare before heading out the door again and go to practice. She thought being a woman and a capable one at that, it would be a brilliant idea to multitask. So she put her stovetop Espresso maker onto the stove, ran into the shower and as it was the first cold day since summer, she had put the heating on earlier. Now you know how it smells a bit weird after you turn the heating on for the first time in months. She got out of the shower and thought it smelt a bit too weird to just come from the radiators. So she went to see what her coffee was doing. Only the espresso maker sat there doing nothing while the plastic bowl holding oranges on the backburner had melted into lava-like blue melting bubbles.

Pretty funny and also pretty damn stupid and dangerous at the same time.

I have a similar kitchen accident to admit. I had cooked pasta and was draining it in a plastic sieve. Before I arrange the food I usually put the sieve with the pasta back onto the pot so the residue water can drain. So I did that. Arranged the food on the plates, we left to eat in the dining room. Only did I forget to turn off the stove that I had put the pot back on. It was a gas burner. Ten minutes into dinner it started to smell like burnt plastic and I ran into the kitchen to find the rest of the pasta, the sieve and the pot nicely melted together in one huge lump.

What was your worst kitchen nightmare?

8 comments:

misguidedmommy said...

i once preheated the oven only to catch my moms wooden wok on fire that she had stored in there because it didnt fit in any cabinets.

Maggie Moo said...

A long time ago (Hey, I need to preserve my chefdome!) I needed a pot large enough to cook whatever it was I was cooking (dont' remember) and the only thing I had was the insert to my crock pot. So, thinking it was made for hight heat, I put it on the burner and proceeded to cook the food.

About 5 minutes into it, I hear a large cracking sound (like ice almost) and looked over to see the ceramic had busted in two and my food went all over the place.

Pure genius.

Anonymous said...

At the risk of Shannon coming down on me...my kitchen nightmare is just having to go in there and actually try to make anything that I can't do in a microwave or my Taso coffee machine ;)

Jen said...

Oh gosh last X-mas my husband and I decided to make everyone in our family homemade bread and peanut butter cookies. I made two batches of cookies that came out completely DISASTEROUS (I am a terrible baker!)- they were all flat and gross. So I decided to move on to bread and forget about cookies. Halfway through making the first batch of bread I was freaking out because the dough wasn't turning into DOUGH- it was just a weird soupy mixture. That was when the hubby figured out that SOMEONE (probably HIM) had put powdered sugar in the FLOUR container and I had been using Powdered sugar thinking it was flour the ENTIRE TIME. Glad it wasn't just my baking skillz!

Melisa Wells said...

Gee Kat,
I've been combing through all of my life memories, trying to come up with a story to share, but all I can think of are OTHER people's kitchen nightmares! LOL

All I've had are some close calls. I make eggs and turkey bacon often for breakfast and, due to my advancing age ("I'm gonna be 40...someday!"), I have--several times--driven all the way home from work, which is 15-20 minutes one way, because I thought I left a burner on (and we have a gas stove). Fortunately I never really did leave one on, on those days.

I did, however, leave a burner on one day when I was off. But I was lucky enough to notice the smell before I started a real fire.

I now, because of my craziness, turn off the burners and say to myself as I do it, "OFF. OFF." Or I flick my wrist really hard or something...JUST SOMETHING...that will make me remember that yes, I did indeed leave the house without potentially burning it down. Unfortunately, I sometimes wonder if I remembered to shut the garage door when I left, too.

There's no hope for me. :)


Melisa
rememberruby.blogspot.com

kat said...

Thank you everyone for sharing your stories. There seems to be lots of stupid things that happen to us in the kitchen, though all of us are probably pretty good cooks (except maybe for Patty who admitted she's more of a barista *lol*)

Melisa, don't worry there's treatment available. I think your condition is called neurosis :o). My name is Kat and I am a neurotic too. I cannot leave the house without checking three times that I turned the iron off. This may be the reason I refuse to iron on a weekly basis. I am also known to go back into the house to check if the stove is turned off. We can suffer together :)

Melisa Wells said...

A-ha! :)
Is THAT what it's called?

You're right. Well, at any rate I'm glad I'm not alone. LOL

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