# Kitchen disasters you've seen or done **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 17, 2006, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010 "2006-04-17T15:24:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/21 "2006-04-17T17:24:16Z")
Okay, here’s my second one. This one wasn’t my fault! My roommate and I were two bachelors and as such did not have very nice or expensive kitchen appliances. That included our toaster, which we probably bought for $6.99 at Wal-Mart. Sometimes when you pushed the lever down, it wouldn’t ‘catch’ and you would have to push it down a couple of times before it would start toasting. One day I put some strawberry pop-tarts in it, and pushed the lever down a couple of times before it latched and started toasting. I went into the other room. Again, a few minutes go by and I hear the smoke alarm go off. I figured my pop-tarts were burnt, but no – they’re on fire! Flames are coming out of the toaster and licking the bottom of our cabinets! I unplugged the toaster, threw it in the sick (still on fire) and turned on the water. Ended up with a half-melted toaster and black, soggy poptarts. (Later, I found a website that documented the flame-throwing tendencies of strawberry poptarts). Why do my stories all involve flames and destroyed equipment? ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/22 "2006-04-17T17:24:40Z")
A decade ago when I still had a porch, I decided to graduate from a $6 hibachi to a full blown Weber grill. I hauled the thing home and assembled it, frightening the cat. When it was done I wheeled it out to the porch and fillied it with charcoal. Match Light, that is. Charcoal impregnated with lighter fluid. Because I loves me some steak wot tastes like solvent. I lit the sucker up, and man, those flames were high! They nearly reached the top of the porch, which was made entirely of 80-year-old dried out timber. And it was starting to blacken. But I knew science. I knew that a flame deprived of oxygen would die out. So I put the lid on my brand new Weber grill. Satisfied that I had Dante’s Inferno well under control, I went inside the kitchen to chop some veggies. WHOOOOOOM! CLANNNNNGGGGG! Apparently, Match Light does not take kindly to being suffocated. It likes to fill nearby spaces with explosive fumes. And then explode them. At least I didn’t burn the neighborhood down. But the lid never did fit right after that. ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/23 "2006-04-17T17:29:23Z")
I lived for awhile in a group home when I was a teenager. We all had rotating kitchen duties. On one of my turns, I decided I would make cabbage rolls, just like my mom’s, for about 20 people. I spent all afternoon in the kitchen, boiling the cabbage and waiting for the leaves to cool down, filling them with ground beef and onions and rice, etc. I must have made 60 of them. All went well. The place smelled great. Everything was on schedule. About half an hour before supper, I checked on them. They looked like they could use a bit of water. So, picture the oven door open, the middle rack halfway out, the roasting pan with its lid off. I turned around to go to the sink and put water in the measuring cup, when I heard, almost in slow-motion, “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzip / thump / bang / crash!!!” I turned around again, and the entire pan had slid off the rack, landing upside down on the floor. We had hot dogs. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/24 "2006-04-17T18:04:11Z")
Working in Food and Beverage for about ten years, little mishaps and assorted injuries were fairly frequent. Not nearly as frequent as one would expect though, but occasionally something went wrong-- After all, you gotta crack some eggs to make an omelette. I can’t think of anything huge… I’ve seen some nasty cuts to the bone, some nasty burns, some standard kitchen conflagrations, all luckily controlled and extinguished fairly quickly. My worst was an incident when we were short handed and we were getting slammed. Somebody had taken a sheet pan of bread straight out of the oven and placed it on a prep table. I needed it and didn’t realize it had just come out of the oven. I grabbed it in a full slammed, thousand things on my mind/in the weeds, death grip. I carried it a full 2-5 seconds before dropping it. The pan being so hot it had a delayed pain registry and fused to my hand. Some nasty third degree burns. Luckily, I was on a medical college campus and got it attended very quickly. Could have been much worse. It was actually quite nice having a team of 4 beautiful nursing students take care of my hand, applying soothing unguents while flirting shamelessly. ---
**Author:** ![AmericanMaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@AmericanMaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AmericanMaid)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/25 "2006-04-17T18:13:35Z")
Years ago, I decided to make some hardboiled eggs, then I went into the next room and forgot about the eggs for almost an hour when the smell of smoke reminded me. I not only burned the eggs, the pan was on fire. Yes, I am the woman who can’t even boil an egg. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/26 "2006-04-17T18:16:46Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I was watching a Good Eats marathon one Sunday a few years back. I was getting hungry, and decided to make something from that show. Hmm, the pan-fried trout sounded great. I ran off to the store and got the ingredients. > > It was a hot day and I had no AC, so I was wearing naught but undies in my apartment. I was trying to remember the recipe from scratch while I was cooking. As I flipped the fish over, I tried to remember what Alton said about flipping the fish. “Oh yeah”, I mused, as my flaky and tender trout fell to the raw side, “always flip it away from you. Otherwise…” > > I had blisters on my chest for about three weeks. Yes, that was when I learned that lesson, too. _Flip away from yourself_. And don’t cook in your underwear! That lesson I figured out before I even started cooking, but am still trying to teach my SO. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/27 "2006-04-17T18:28:02Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > And don’t cook in your underwear! A great maxim, but one that needs further explanation. After all, one might come away thinking that one should first removes one’s underwear prior to employing the pan frying process. ---
**Author:** ![Whammo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8dc957/32.png) [@Whammo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whammo)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/28 "2006-04-17T18:33:02Z")
I tried to boil suger and corn syrup in the microwave in a Tupperware bowl. Not. A. Good. Idea. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/29 "2006-04-17T19:49:51Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > A great maxim, but one that needs further explanation. After all, one might come away thinking that one should first removes one’s underwear prior to employing the pan frying process. \ I should think in that case burns on your \*\*chest \*\* would be the \*least \* of your worries. Yes, everyone, here’s the revised maxim: **Don’t cook with sensitive skin exposed!** ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/30 "2006-04-17T20:16:39Z")
Back when I was too ignorant to realize the inherent folly of such things, I invited the boss and his family over for dinner. We were cooking lasagna, using the rectangular baking dish that matched our china. The lasagna was cooling atop the stove, and I called everyone to dinner. As my boss appeared in the kitchen doorway, with a potholder in each hand I was prepared to “swoosh” the lasagna off the stove onto the slightly lower table. Little did I realize that the little loopy thingy on the rear potholder in my left hand was pointed downward such that, when I grabbed the baking dish and “swooshed” it, the loop hooked onto the cast-iron stove-top burner cover thingy. With the result that with my right hand I essentially flung a baking dish full of steaming lasagna across the kitchen and into the wall. Suffice it to say, dinner was delayed a few moments… ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/31 "2006-04-17T20:18:54Z")
I have a decent-sized burn on my right hand from being splashed with hot oil during a deep-frying incident a couple of weeks ago. (Pakoras, for the record. They were delicious. The burn hurt only for several hours.) Oh, and **stargazer** apparently asploded a Pyrex pan recently. I’ll refrain from explaining in the hope that she shows up and tells the story. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/32 "2006-04-17T20:29:49Z")
> [@Whammo](#): > > I tried to boil suger and corn syrup in the microwave in a Tupperware bowl. > Not. A. Good. Idea. That reminds me: I was making flan for my son to take to school as part of a project. He had about 30 kids in the class, so I thought it would be cool if I could make a whole lot of tiny flans. My idea was to get some mini ice cream cones with the flat bottoms and coat the insides with the hot sugar, then fill with the custard mixture. It seemed to be working at first. I dipped about six tiny cones before I managed to drop a glob of melted sugar on my finger. It was so hot I didn’t even realize how badly it was burning me for a moment. When I did realize it, I tried to shake it off, but it was already hardening. It seemed like forever before I could set down whatever I was holding and get my finger under the cold water. After that, I decided to take a break from mucking around with the sugar, so I filled my first few cones with the hot flan mixture. It promptly dissolved the little things into disgusting wet brown lumps. By then, my finger was hurting like the dickens and I was heartily disgusted with the whole mess, so I threw it all out and wrote my son’s teacher an excuse note about his project. And that’s the story of how I got my worst scar! ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/33 "2006-04-17T20:41:32Z")
One more: when I was about 7 years old my mother let me try to make a batch of fudge. I swear I knew the difference between 1/2 _teaspoon_ of salt and 1/2 _cup_ of salt, but I must not have read the recipe very carefully… The look on my father’s face when he took that first, big bit was priceless, though. ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/34 "2006-04-17T20:42:45Z")
> [@AmericanMaid](#): > > Years ago, I decided to make some hardboiled eggs, then I went into the next room and forgot about the eggs for almost an hour when the smell of smoke reminded me. I not only burned the eggs, the pan was on fire. Yes, I am the woman who can’t even boil an egg. I did that once, too, but I didn’t get any fire. My eggs exploded. It wasn’t a big explosion, but it was loud. The water had completely boiled away and all that was left was a couple of cracked eggs and a burnt pot. ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/35 "2006-04-17T21:07:13Z")
My wife was making roast beef-in-a-bag, with potatoes and carrots and onions and seasoning. It was baking away in a non-Pyrex baking dish, when we both heard “blam!” from inside the oven. What I think happened is that some escaping steam made a drop of water that slid down the outside of the bag and landed on the surface of the dish. Because it exploded into a million chunks and shards in the oven, and broke more when I took it out, getting all over the floor. I think I was able to salvage the roast, but we were still finding stray blue glass shards in the nooks and crannies of the kitchen floor for months! ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/36 "2006-04-17T21:09:13Z")
Another, you say? I got up one morning and made coffee. OK so far. I went to have a cup and, well, I didn’t have a cup. I blame the rest on not being awake. I sat the pot down, not on the heater/burner (Mr. Coffee style coffee maker), but on top of the coffee maker. The coffee maker was on the counter, right in front of the cabinet with the coffee cups. Yep, opened the cabinet and knocked the pot of coffee off, right onto my bare…errr, stomach and everything below my stomach. At least now I was awake. And scalded. Not McDonalds scalded, but one big red blister. ---
**Author:** ![cbawlmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cbawlmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cbawlmer)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/37 "2006-04-17T21:28:17Z")
A few years ago, my aunt baked her broccoli-rice casserole in a glass casserole dish. When it was done, she took it out of the oven and set it down on top of a hot pad on the counter. She walked away and a minute later, she heard it go BANG! She ran back into the kitchen to see exploded glass, plus cheesy rice and broccoli, everywhere. No one had been in the kitchen at the time, and the dish was nowhere near the sink or any other water. We have NO IDEA what made the dish explode, and suspect there was some flaw in the dish. It was relatively new when she used it. I can’t remember having any major kitchen disasters, but I’ve accidentally poured a few things down the sink when I was trying to drain them. I started using a colander every time for spaghetti, which solved that problem, but the other night I dumped a pint of sour cream down when I just meant to pour off the tiny bit of liquid that forms on top while it’s in the fridge. When will I ever learn? ---
**Author:** ![anu-la1979](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/47e85d/32.png) [@anu-la1979](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anu-la1979)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/38 "2006-04-17T22:27:37Z")
Probably the worst was the attempt at paella when I was in college. I can’t decide what was worse, the crunchy and burned rice or the fact that it smelled like a closetful of women with bacterial vaginosis. A recent cooking disaster of mine, complete with long-winded family anecdote about a truly spectacular kitchen disaster that preceded it several years ago can be found [here](http://monkeyinasuit.blogspot.com/2006/04/ha-ha-ha-banero.html). ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2006, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/39 "2006-04-17T23:17:54Z")
In August 1969, shortly after I graduated from college, I had a brief and disastrous venture into the world of mead-brewing. I had always been interested in mead, a honey-based fermented beverage that is frequently mentioned in Norse and Celtic literature. I came across a recipe for brewing mead, and I spent a long, tedious day whipping up a big ol’ batch. I bottled it in brown screw-top bottles and hand-labeled the bottles in beautiful calligraphic script. I gave my mead as a gift to several special friends. One of my friends was a Celtic Literature professor at the University of Tulsa. I visited his office and proudly presented him with two bottles of my homemade mead. He was delighted, and he thanked me profusely. I kept about a dozen bottles for myself, in a kitchen cabinet. About a week later as I was lying in bed, I was shocked to wakefulness by the noise of what sounded like gunfire. Loud banging noises were coming from the kitchen. I rushed in and found that every one of my bottles of mead had exploded, and the interior of my kitchen cabinet was coated with honey-yeast goo. The recipe that I used had failed to mention that as the mead aged, it would produce expansive gases which would require the use of corks secured with wire, NOT tightly capped bottles. Uh-oh. I telephoned my professor friend to warn him. He knew. My mead giftie had exploded on his desk, and a stack of ungraded summer school term papers had been turned into sticky mush by the explosion. Sometimes when I’m feeling all bursty-proud of my intellect, I remind myself of this incident. It’s always useful to have a good “stoopid story” or two with which to bludgeon one’s ego on occasion. Fortunately for me, my ego will never need to go unbludgeoned as long as I can recall the episode of the mead bombs. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010/40 "2006-04-18T00:40:13Z")
I sure see a lot of exploded glassware that was supposedly oven safe. I only have a few pieces of glass bakeware but this makes me not want to use them ever again. I do have a couple similar stories to **pinkfreud** ’s (by the way, I love pinkfreud’s posts!\*). I was only involved indirectly in these incidents. The first was my mothers attempts at homemade wine. She put little balloons on top of the bottles, the balloons were supposed to expand with the gas produced by the fermentation and I think that eventually they were supposed to deflate as the gas disappated but that’s all theory since the bottles still exploded. The smell of grapey fermented yeast permeated the porch for ages. Much later, I was in college but still living at home and my brother had to move in with his Korean wife. She made homemade Kimchi, she didn’t bury it in the backyard but let it ferment in a jar on the porch. Yes, it asploded. That poor porch. I’ll take the smell of grapey fermented yeast over the smell of spicy fermented cabbage any day. It was months, maybe years before the smell went away. Still she made good kimchi when it managed to stay on the jar and not all over the porch. \*I’m just a wee bit tipsy but that has nothing to do with it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kitchen-disasters-youve-seen-or-done/353010.md?page=3)