Kitchen disasters?

! (Although that story verges on TMI! )

verges?

Pitcure it now: I in the kitchen making the gravy from turkey drippings, Gail trying to figure out how many place settings to usem her Mom washing dishes at the sink. I reach in the cabinet for cornstarch because the gravy is too thin still, pour a bit in a bowl with some stock to dissolve it, then I pour it into the pot of gravy. Instant pyroclastic eruption over the top and down to the glass cooktop. "OH SHIT!" was what the guests in the livingroom heard, and they went silent as I cursed at the foaming gravy. The smell of burnt gravy filled the kitchen. I looked in the cabinet to see just what I added, and instead of cornstarch, I had grabbed the baking soda container! After a taste and the addition of cornstarch, finally it was gravy - not the best gravy, but edible at least.

I am very, very thankful that this dinner is over, and nobody died (either by poisoning or by homicide in the kitchen, although that wasn't certain a few hours ago!).

I already described in a previous posting my first attempt at making Cajun andouille and chicken gumbo, during which I started a grease fire at 1 AM on the 15th of January, with the outside temperature well below 0 degrees F; my exclusively indoor cat ran outside to escape the smoke and noise from the smoke alarms; and as a consequence my having to complete the meal wearing a parka, since I had to open all the windows to air out the condo and placate the smoke alarms, and I had to keep the door open so the cat could get back in when she felt like it.

So I won't repeat the details of that one here.

My latest kitchen disaster occurred yesterday when I made rasam podi, a spice mixture used in south Indian dal soups. The spice mixture includes 15 dried hot red chiles, which are crumbled before being toasted with the other whole spices. While crumbling the chiles (mature serranos, by the look of them, in my bare hands), a stray fleck of chile got in my eye.

This is where the big mistake was made. What is the natural reflex reaction when something bad gets in your eye? You rub your eyes, of course. But I had just been crushing chiles, of course. So I just rubbed about 10 times the amount of capsicum into both eyes as I was trying to get out of one of them.

Immediate painful blindness was the result. My eyes were squeezed shut and even if I opened them I couldn't see anything coherent through all the tears. I managed to stagger upstairs to the bathroom, where I had to do my best to find the soap with my eyes shut, lather up my hands, then lather up my eyes, then somehow find the washcloth to remove the soap.

A good five minutes later I was able to see out of the eye that didn't have the fleck of chile in it enough to evict the fleck of chile from the really bad eye.

After another five minutes I could see well enough to continue making dinner.

-Paul W.

P.S. - the rasam was delicious. But perhaps not worth risking my eyesight for.

Ouch, Paul. I have done almost that very thing. Chiles rule. But not in one's eyes.

Robert, did you tell your guests what had happened to the gravy?

Ouch Paul. I've been there my friend.

rwj

Ouch Paul. I've been there my friend.

rwj

As have I. And I don't even want to remember going to the bathroom after processing about 4 gallons of chiles for sauce. Including plenty of habaneros. Without gloves.

Robert, did you tell your guests what had happened to the gravy?

Cynthia - Only one guest was told. But they all were afraid to ask after the verbal blistering I was doing to myself and the gravy.

As have I. And I don't even want to remember going to the bathroom after processing about 4 gallons of chiles for sauce. Including plenty of habaneros. Without gloves.

I've made THAT mistake, too. Talk about the "fire down below".

When completely drunk, I once ate an entire fresh habanero on a dare. It was a very instructive exercise in anatomy. For the next two days, I knew precisely where in my digestive tract the habanero was. You wouldn't believe how many twists and turns there are in the digestive tract.

Final disposition of a habanero is just as painful as first eating it.

-Paul W.

Yesterday, my sister in law was making her first turkey for the family. (fortunately, I was here, not there)

For two days I gave her precise instructions for the preparation of the bird. Thursday morning, via telephone, like an air traffic controller talking a novice pilot through a landing, I guided her every step of the way.

After they had dinner, they called me, to let me know that the turkey turned out wonderfully. But, was the bird supposed to have this plastic bag inside?

Apparently, she missed the neck when she removed the heart and gizzard.

Thank god I'm doing Christmas.

Well, yesterday's Thanksgiving feast provided some "challenges."

First, while slicing through a garlic bulb, my finger decided to camouflage itself as a clove and I managed to turn the end of the ring finger on my left hand into a bloody flip top. I had several hours of cooking to go so I just aligned the tip and tigthened down with a few band-aids and then held it all in place with a rubber glove. I figured my daughter's boyfriend, a medical doctor, could fix me up when he got here for dinner. But they broke up the night before; he didn't come; and now I will not have two misaligned finger tips on the left hand. (I whacked off the tip of my pinky several years ago and the ER doc was a bit cockeyed.)

Second, I dropped my cornbread on the floor and suddenly had cornbread crumbs for the apple/sausage dressing.

Third, I was melting some butter in the microwave. One stick exploded and evenly coated the interior.

Other than that, it was great. No real disasters, just distracting "challenges." Fortunately, someone else did the dishes.

That's gotta be smarting today. My advice to you is to drink heavily.

That's gotta be smarting today. My advice to you is to drink heavily.

Surprisingly, no. It was a real pain in the gluteus maximus taking a shower with a Platyex rubber glove on and trying to keep the finger dry, but, other than that it's oddly insignificant. Still, I can't wait to see all the necrotic tissue later. Nonethless, I will heed your advice.

Several years ago, a friend of mine cooked a Thanksgiving meal, but when it was time to remove the turkey, he couldn't get the oven door open. He couldn't get it open no matter how hard he tried.

Eventually, he took a crowbar to the door and pried it open, saving the turkey but totally destroying the door, the aftermath of which looked a piece of twisted, mangled wreckage.

And, yes, he had to buy a new stove.

Well, yesterday's Thanksgiving feast provided some "challenges."

First, while slicing through a garlic bulb, my finger decided to camouflage itself as a clove and I managed to turn the end of the ring finger on my left hand into a bloody flip top. I had several hours of cooking to go so I just aligned the tip and tigthened down with a few band-aids and then held it all in place with a rubber glove. I figured my daughter's boyfriend, a medical doctor, could fix me up when he got here for dinner. But they broke up the night before; he didn't come; and now I will not have two misaligned finger tips on the left hand. (I whacked off the tip of my pinky several years ago and the ER doc was a bit cockeyed.)

Second, I dropped my cornbread on the floor and suddenly had cornbread crumbs for the apple/sausage dressing.

Third, I was melting some butter in the microwave. One stick exploded and evenly coated the interior.

Other than that, it was great. No real disasters, just distracting "challenges." Fortunately, someone else did the dishes.

Youch! I took the tip off of my thumb while chopping chocolate a few weeks ago. Left a nice little half-moon divot in the nail as well. I did what you did - Band-aid'd it and went on. First night was bad - it actually kept me awake. Showered with my hand up in the air to keep it dry for three or four days. Worst part was at work. Whenever I put gloves on, the thing would start bleeding again to the point that it would soak through the Band-aids.

A pain in the ass as well as a pain in the thumb.

A pain in the ass as well as a pain in the thumb.

Most assuredly. But I found that dressing the wound and then pulling the latex glove to kinda kept things in place and also dry. Have you ever tried to dress a turkey with one hand, though!?

The best part was when one of the kids found a small piece of onion skin in the dressing. He asked if I had gotten some paper into the mix. I looked at my wounded and missing fingertip and simply said, "I wondered where that chunk went off to."

Years ago, I had come back from a trip to New Orleans, and had enjoyed "blackened" bluefish, so I decided to try my hand at "blackened" cuisine.

I decided to try a blackened steak.

As you're supposed to do, I got the frying pan very hot and coated it with pepper, then threw on the steak.
Let's say, that I discovered what "pepper mace" is like, as I smoked out both me and my roommate at the time with the pepper burning our eyes.

Needless to say, I've not tried that again.

Let's say, that I discovered what "pepper mace" is like, as I smoked out both me and my roommate at the time with the pepper burning our eyes. Needless to say, I've not tried that again.

Yes, that can be quite an experience. I use a lot of chile peppers in frying pan places I shouldn't and gas myself frequently. Somehow, however, I just can seem to resist tossing those pickled jalapeños into the skillet!! Maybe I'm just trying to recall the student protest days.

John,

I once did much the same thing to my dinner guests when I made kung pao chicken. Part of the recipe calls for heating oil in a wok, then throwing in a mass of dried red chiles and stirring them about 30 seconds. I did so, oblivious to the menacing cloud that arose from the wok, drifted over my head, and came down in the next room where the guests were. A minute later there was a lot of gasping and coughing from the other room as the pepper cloud descended.

-Paul W.

As you're supposed to do, I got the frying pan very hot and coated it with pepper, then threw on the steak.

I hope you coated the steak with pepper, then threw it on the pan, not the other way around?

Cajun blackening is a technique that should only be attempted outdoors, or by those who have a commercial-grade fume hood over the stove.

-Paul W.

Third, I was melting some butter in the microwave. One stick exploded and evenly coated the interior.

Sorry to hear about all those misfortunes, but that one rang a bell.

Pink soft rubber erasers for pencil (UK calls them rubbers, I think) shaped like little palm-sized bricks become hard like ceramic when chilled down by dropping into liquid nitrogen; stresses form inside during the fast freezing. When you then take one out and put it on a room-temperature desktop, it sits there for some minutes and then abruptly explodes, sending out shards of soft rubber. A favorite trick for, say, experimental physics graduate students to initiate a newcomer. The butter stick may show a similar effect, but shifted up in temperature, and mess.