I’ve been craving some homemade pasta for a month, but have had no time to make it. Yesterday I finally put aside some time and spent the day mixing up some pasta dough out of semolina flour (which makes a hard, pebbly, tough to handle dough), kneading it painstakingly, rolling it out, and hand cutting it into thin fettucine. I had the scallops and cream pasta sauce ready, drained the pasta into the colander, and . . .
. . . let the colander slip, overturn, and dropped the entire clump of pasta it into the sink, where it slithered en masse down into the garbage disposal.
GODAMMIT! I had considered putting this into the pit, but not many people would consider the waste of a batch of pasta as pitworthy material. Hours of work down the drain!
It was a metal colander, for which I needed oven mitts, which made handling it awkward. Lesson learned - next time I use a plastic colander, upon which I can get a better grip.
I reboiled some water (while still cursing and snarling) and made up some plain old dried capellini instead, but it wasn’t the same. I still crave homemade pasta, but it’s going to be awhile before I spend hours making some up.
Ouch. No fun. I’m lucky–I only lost one cheese ravioli down the garbage disposal last night. I was still ticked. But I had 8 left to enjoy, and the amount of time and energy required to cook 9 vs. 8 is negligable.
Sounds like the accident I had one Thanksgiving. I thought I could simply pour off into the sink the grease that rose to the top of the giant pot of gravy. The hot grease burned my hand, I dropped the pot upside down into the sink over the drain and the turkey went bouncing on the floor. Thank God no one else was home.
I once arrived at my mother’s house minutes after she had dropped a full 6-quart container of homemade vanilla ice cream mixture. Six quarts of milk, sugar and eggs coated her kitchen floor. She was not happy.
I was recently about two feet from someone who hald a half-grip on things and bobbled a sheet pan filled with scones coming out of the oven, sending dozens of the little doughy delights bounding and rolling onto the floor.
Remember - in a professional kitchen, it’s not if, but when and how badly, you will get cut and burned.
As for pasta in the drain, I used to work with a fellow who was making mac-n-cheese one night, and the colander slipped. Before anyone else was able to see what happened, he scooped the noodles out of the drain and kept on going. His rationale was that the sink had just been sterilized by the boiling water that the macaroni was in. :eek:
Oh, I’m not above colossal messy goofs either. Ask my mother some day about the pickled beets, the bottom of the fridge and the floor…
Ugh! I once prepared pasta for my brother and myself. Served it, gave him his plate and swiftly turned around with my plate in my hand. My pasta stayed floating in mid-air for exactly 7.2 seconds while my brother and I looked at each other, letting in the full tragedy of what was going to happen. PLOP to the floor it went. My brother didn’t have the heart to give me the “it sucks to be you” that I deserved and shares his,instead. I was so disheartened that cleanup had to wait until after the siesta.
A couple of weeks ago, I was making an omelette. It was coming along quite nicely … and then I had the interesting idea of trying to flip it, the way I’d flip a pancake. I mean, hey, pancakes are easy to flip, right? Done it lots of times. How hard could an omelette be?
Yeah, well. So eggs tend to break up a lot more readily than pancakes. So half the omelette ended up on the floor. Dang…
Speaking of flipping pancakes, someone in my seventh grade Home-Ec class flipped a chocolate chip pancake. The pancake went up to high and partially stuck on the ceiling overhead. The other part landed in his hair.
AAAARRRGGGGHHH! I feel your pain. It is indeed most pit-worthy.
Not to be a Nancy Know-it-all, but I highly recommend getting a Pasta Pot/Strainer with a Locking Lid. I got one for camping (ever try to strain pasta over a muddy grass field?) and it’s the best thing ever. I use it at home, too, just because I don’t have to worry about overturning the colander or splashing boiling water on the baby’s head.
When my ex’s dad was dying, my mother came to stay to help take care of the kids. It was at Thanksgiving, so I was doing my thing. Everything was coming to completion, when I turned around to make gravy and saw my mother dumping the giblet water down the drain. AAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGGG!! was my approximate sound. She dropped the pot and the giblets made a run for the door. Gravy was lame that year.
I was livid when I dropped a colander-full of cheap store pasta into the sink. I can’t imagine how pissed I’d be if I’d spent hours actually making the stuff.
I resolved after that to never hold the colander again. I just set it in the sink. These days, I’ve been using my stock pot which came with a pasta strainer insert. When the pasta’s done you have to pull the insert out with both hands and the water drains back into the pot, and it seems to reduce the risk of accidents.
I’m so sorry. I did this with a cake once. I spent a great deal of time and energy making a scratch red velvet cake with super duper cooked icing for my family’s Christmas celebration. It involved two separate emergency Christmas Eve trips to the grocery store (I was cooking in someone else’s kitchen), a young niece who nearly died at my hands after sticking her hand in the middle of one of the layers and pulling out a large chunk, and other adventures. I’ve baked a lot of cakes, and I’ve never worked harder for one.
I finally cut the cake after dinner, served everyone else’s piece, but not my own … and turned it upside down on the floor. I still don’t know how I did it. My brother’s dog was ecstatic. Apparently the look on my face was a sight to behold. My favorite brother shared his piece with me. That’s not why he’s my favorite brother, but it didn’t hurt.
