One day, my dad put the kettle on to boil while he was alone in the house, and then went into the basement to continue working.
Some time later my brother came home from school. He went into the kitchen and took one look at the stove. And then – in the same tone of voice he would have used to say, “Dad, there’s somebody at the door for you” – he called down to the basement
Frying chicken, my mom once caught the pan on fire. She was so startled that while she remembered to put the lid on it, she was convinced she needed to move it completely off the stove (instead of shutting the stove off).
So she put it on the floor. The linoleum floor. Which the hot pan merrily melted through and scorched the concrete underneath.
For about ten years, we kept a throw rug over the burned linoleum in the middle of the kitchen. It stayed that way until the parents finally got new linoleum.
The first time I made candy, I didn’t have a pot that was big enough, but I didn’t know that yet. The boiling sugar gains a lot of volume! So it boiled over and caught fire on the stove. Burning oil scares me (I don’t do deep-fry), but burning sugar didn’t strike me as a big problem, so I blew it out. It caught fire again. I blew it out again and kept stirring, so the whole thing went stir, stir poof, poof stir, stir poof, poof until the candy was done.
Then I went out and bought a much bigger pot at Smart & Final.
Not me, but three scenarios I remember from friends at college:
Freshman year: Drunk guy on our floor decides he wants to cook a steak. Of course, this takes time, and he gets impatient. So he turns the oven to 400, douses the steak in lighter fluid, and tosses it in. The inside of the oven was virtually destroyed and the entire unit had to be replaced.
Sophomore year: Roommate is cooking hamburgers in the broiler while the rest of us watch TV. We start to notice that the kitchen is looking very hazy, and there is a strong burning smell. He does not notice until we indicate to him that there may be a problem. “Do you think it’s done cooking?” The unanimous reply was “YES! IT IS ON FIRE!” as we all sprinted around opening windows before the fire alarm went off and brought campus security. He was rather put out. This roommate also thawed raw chicken in Ziploc bags and then tried to dump out the bloody juice and reuse the bag with just a quick rinse until I caught him at it and stopped him. None of us would eat anything he cooked.
Senior year: I’m upstairs taking an afternoon nap, another roommate decides to cook some pasta before going to class. He sets the water to boil on the stove, forgets about it, and leaves. 45 minutes later, I start to wander sleepily downstairs to fix myself a snack and notice as I’m on the landing that there is an empty pot on the stove with flames shooting up the sides. I nearly fell down the stairs rushing to turn it off. The pot was covered in some kind of nasty residue and had to be thrown away. Boy, did that roommate get an earful when he returned.
Years ago I was making a stir-fry for a big group at a friend’s house. But they didn’t have the right pan, nor the right oil. And I didn’t really know their stove. So I heated the biggest sorta-suitable pan they had to what I thought was the right temperature, then added the oil.
The oil began smoking immediately & burst into flame a couple seconds later. Naturally they didn’t have a lid as big as the pan, so I had to rummage in their unfamiliar cabinets to find the biggest too-small lid they had, then stick my hand in the fire to cover the oil surface with the lid.
It was over in a few seconds, but all the assembled guests were suitably impressed.
Speaking of toaster ovens: Mr. February Lends a Hand
When I fry something to eat, I usually turn off the gas, put my paper plate on the stove and dump the food onto it.
This works much less well if you don’t turn off the gas.
I didn’t start a fire, but I singed my plate. (about a week ago.)
heh. i forgot that i DO have a personal attempted burn down the kitchen story, altho it wasn’t my kitchen.
i managed to cook a potholder while using the stove in my ex-fiance’s kitchen. during the process of cooking spaghetti one night, i casually removed the pot from the burner. it would have been no biggie, except that it was a GAS burner i removed it from.
the queen forgot that a gas stove meant open flame. yeah. the queen hasn’t used a gas stove since the early 70s. the queen forgot.
i heard hiss… sizzle, followed by instant, spectacular flame-up as the holder turned into a fourth of july celebration on my left hand. by the way the holder went up, i’d guess there was some grease already on it.
out of the corner of my eye i saw the SO’s eyes increase to the size of saucers while i calmly strolled over to the sink - and dropped in the holder without dropping my pan, too, thank god. end of drama. ‘oops. sorry about that,’ i said.
i was very lucky i didn’t burn my hand, set my sleeve on fire, drop the pan full of boiling water w/pasta in it, OR set the curtains above the sink on fire.
luckily, that stove is no longer an issue for me. 