It sounds to me like it would probably be a much better idea not to be in the kitchen with a pressure cooker. Less risk of shrapnel injuries.
I’ve 3 stories, one mine the other two not.
When I was a kid I was a french fry fanatic. Couldn’t get enough of em. One day, I decided I wanted some and could not get anyone to make me some, so decided to make them myself. Now, I was around 7. And I was positively forbiden from even touching the stove. So instead I jury rigged a stove with a alcohol burner from an old chemistry kit. Also didn’t know that different sizes cooked at different speed. Ended up with charred black bits and crunchy raw bits. Still think it’s a miracle I didnt burn myself or anything else with the fire or the oil.
THen there’s my dad. He really liked Dulce de Leche (a caramel spread, very nice), so he’d make some ‘home made’ stuff by boiling condensed milk cans for a couple hours. Did this for a number of years… till one of the cans exploded. Again, no one was hurt but we were still finding bits of caramel stuck to various corners in the kitchen for years afterwards.
Last is my neighbour. Nice guy. Had a really nice aviary in his apt. Many birds. Fell asleep while cooking his dinner.
Was using a teflon pan.
He was damned lucky not to get seriously injured himself, but all the birds died from the fumes and he was sick for a couple days.
My cooking mishaps often involve blood- I’m a klutz, and often end up cutting my fingers.
There’s a fair bit of backstory to the worst one:
My ex-boyfriend (we were still friends) was working for Cutco, selling knives. I was a poor college student, so couldn’t afford much, but I bought a butter knife from him. But it wasn’t an ordinary butter knife- the edge was sharp. I figured this would be useful. Never buy cutlery from your ex, even if the breakup was amicable and you’re still friends. Just don’t.
I was using said butter knife to open a plastic pouch of fake crabmeat, when I managed to cut my left middle finger pretty badly. Blood everywhere. I was frantically looking for a Band-Aid. I don’t remember what happened to the dish I was going to put the fake crab in, but I don’t think I ended up eating it. I was bleeding, and having one of those moments like Arthur Dent when he was about to play cricket with the bomb that would make every star in the universe go supernova:
I was worried that I would end up bleeding to death from a cut that I gave myself with a butter knife, and no doubt face eternal ridicule in the afterlife…
I still have a scar from it.
horrrrrk I almost threw up just reading this!
I once had a brownie mishap. A friend and I were making brownies from a mix, but forgot to add the eggs to the mixture before putting it in the oven. When we’d baked it for the required time, it was still liquid. She then came up with the bright idea of adding the eggs to the pan and mixing it up:
Me: The eggs are frying in the pan!
Her: Stir faster!
If there’s a way to salvage brownies that have been baked without the eggs in them, this isn’t it.
Couple of years ago I was making dinner for my GF. I picked up a knife I rarely used and ran my finger along the edge to see if it was sharp.
It was.
It sucked trying to explain that to the ER doctor.
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I did the forgetting-the-difference-between-evaporated-milk-and-sweetened-condensed-milk thing about six months ago, while making peanut butter fudge.
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One night, I was preparing for the cast party for our spring musical at my high school. I had taken Home Ec that year, and I was the only boy in the class on the day we followed the recipe for orange chiffon cake. More importantly, I was the only one in my ktchen, so I made the cake unassisted, and perfectly. Well, I was so proud of this dessert that I made it my permanent contribution to all gatherings of the pot-luck type. No matter how thin I was spreading myself. And with a major supporting role in the show, a part-time job, and a term paper on the Scopes Monkey Trial due in the morning, I was feeling spread a little thin. At about 3:30 a.m., my dad woke me up at the dining room table, where, with a typewriter glued to my cheek, I was slumbering through the screams of the smoke alarm, and smoke was pouring out of the oven. An hour and a half later, I walked to the liquor store to buy another dozen eggs, so I could try again.
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In August of 2003, I was preparing to barbecue some chicken legs and thighs. I prefer to have these separated before I cook them, but they were attached to one another when I bought them because they were cheaper that way. I had separated the last set, except that there was a small flap of skin holding the drumstick to the thigh. No worries, I thought to myself. I’ll just dangle the thigh over the plate and swing the butcher knife right through that little sucker.
Did I mention that I have a familial essential tremor, affecting both of my hands to greater and lesser extents, from day to day? Well, I do. When I returned from the emergency room, with ny index finger heavily bandaged, kaylasmom told me that I’d had a phone call offering me a job interview the following morning.
If you’re ever in a job interview, and the interviewer asks you why you have a huge bandage on your finger, here’s a good response that is self-deprecating and ice-breaking at the same time:
“I lost a knife fight to a dead chicken.”
When I was 9, I wanted to bake a cake from the box for the school’s bake sale. I was a little puzzled reading the directions, which seemed to call for 11/2 cups of water. Yes, it was actually one and a half, but the box didn’t have the fraction part smaller than the one, so it looked like this: 1 1/2. Anyway, we had just learned fractions I knew that 11/2 was really five and a half cups. Yeah, too much water, obviously. My mom walked in while I was making this and surprisingly (probably because she was on the phone) she just calmly scooped out water until it was salvegable. The cake turned out ok, if a little thin. I don’t know if anyone bought it or not.
Last Sunday I burnt myself taking something out of the oven. I only opened the door partway because I didn’t want to get smacked in the face by all the hot air coming out and when I reached in, the door closed on my arm and the inner side of the door came into contact with the underside of my arm.
Mr. Hawk:
Your short narrative was more entertaining than the past few weeks of TV! Have you sold the movie rights yet? I can see stuffed hissing Pepsi bottles as the runaway hit of the Christmas season! Think about it.
My kitchen disaster can’t compare to yours. Mine began at an extended stay hotel and ended with unintended bloodshed. My room had a full kitchen, including a dishwasher. Wow. I’ve never used a dishwasher before. What a perfect place to try it out. What to wash? Dishes? I ate at restaurants. Hmmm, my sandals are a bit fragrant.
Did you know that dishwasher doors aren’t hermetically sealed when closed? It resembled the last stages of your hissing Pepsi bottle after I put a few capfuls of Joy on the sandals. On the top rack. Gallons of foam soon covered the shinyl vinyl. It looked like something from a cheesy 60’s sitcom. In true sitcom form, I wiped it up by skating across the floor on bathroom towels. I’d almost finished before the wife/parents/wacky neighbor came home…wait, I’m channeling the Brady Bunch.
I was ready to pat myself on the back on a job well done when my left foot slid under the stove. Later investigation at Sears revealed it was missing a kickplate. Hey! There’s more suds under there! I pulled out the towel with my foot. The suds were streaked with red. Great, it’s rusty under there. No, my great toe is leaking. Six months later I got a brand new toenail! And the sandals enjoyed a long relaxing rinse in the shower. Or was it nine months on the new nail?
I learned it is a poor idea to use regular dish soap in an automatic dishwasher…