# What was your worst food/cooking related experience?



## spatulator (Jul 21, 2005)

Post your or someone you knows worst injury, recipe disaster, anything. Could be as simple as a way overcooked turkey for thanksgiving, cutting your finger slicing an onion, burning half your kitchen down, or a family picnic where everyone got food poisoning from the potato salad you purchased from the local store. 

This thread should be pretty interesting.


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## middie (Jul 21, 2005)

my boyfriend's aunt was getting thngs ready for thanksgiving dinner. she had a fridge with the freezer ontop. you guessed it, she dropped the turkey on her foot so she spent the whole night at the e.r. so we went over and helped her make the dinner. it would have been too hard for her with a broken foot.


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## crewsk (Jul 21, 2005)

My hubby set our oven on fire making biscuits once. I had cooked something the night before & grease ran over in the bottom of the oven. Well, before I got up the next morning, hubby decided to surprise me with biscuits. As the oven was preheating the grease caught on fire. By this time I was out of bed. Anyway, TC was 3 at the time & he hid behind the front door & Savannah was about 5 mths old & still had a heart monitor. I was trying to grab her without jerking the leads off her & get TC out the door at the same time. Hubby grabbed the fire extinguisher & put the fire out. It took forever to get that extinguisher stuff cleaned up. Although the oven was fine(we had it checked out) my MIL insisted we get a new one & bought it for us.


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## spatulator (Jul 21, 2005)

middie said:
			
		

> my boyfriend's aunt was getting thngs ready for thanksgiving dinner. she had a fridge with the freezer ontop. you guessed it, she dropped the turkey on her foot so she spent the whole night at the e.r. so we went over and helped her make the dinner. it would have been too hard for her with a broken foot.



OUCH, big frozen turkey falling on your foot would hurt like heck. Did it break any bones?


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## middie (Jul 21, 2005)

of course lol. it was an 20 pound turkey. she did have a broken foot but i don't know how many bones were broke.


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## VIDEODROME (Jul 22, 2005)

This is a good place for a first post.  

Anyway one time I was simply heating up one of those lunch bucket things in the microwave for a snack.  The only thing is I forgot to take off the metal lid and it blew up like a lasagna bomb.  It completely coated the inside of the microwave with tomato sauce.


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## middie (Jul 22, 2005)

hi video ! what mess. welcome to dc !!
you'll love it here


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## spatulator (Jul 22, 2005)

I blew out a microwave once by leaving an arby's sandwich in its wrapper. Wrapper had tin foil in it I guess. My parents were pretty mad.


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## VIDEODROME (Jul 22, 2005)

Most of my kitchen disasters seem to involve the microwave.  Another time I put in a frozen loaf of bread to thaw in the microwave and I forgot about the metal tie on the end.  Moments later a small fire was starting but we caught it before it got out of hand.


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## ronjohn55 (Jul 22, 2005)

Mine was probably a burn while brewing. Now I've got pretty heat resistant hands, and have had more than my fair share of contact burns (hitting hot grates in the oven, etc.), but to me, that's nothing like having your whole right hand immersed in 170+ degree (F) water!  


That was "quite" the experience!

John


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## middie (Jul 22, 2005)

sounds like a painful one ronjohn


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## spatulator (Jul 22, 2005)

Any major mishaps while cooking with oil? I had one the other day. I put a thin coat of olive oil in a pot and turned the burner on high and walked to the freezer to grab some frozen shrimp. When I put the shrimp in the pot it sizzled and spat oil all over the place. I had to quick take the pot off and throw it in the sink cause I was being burned every second by the spitting oil


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## ironchef (Jul 22, 2005)

In culinary school, we were doing steak diane one day. This girl in my class, when she added the brandy to the pan, she had her face too close when she flambe'd it and burned most of her eyebrows off and part of her bangs. Later that semester, when we were disposing of used oil (we would put it in these 5 gallon plastic tubs), she poured HOT oil into the tub which melted a hole in the side, spilling about 4 gallons of oil all over the floor. Needless to say, she did not last in culinary school.


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## college_cook (Jul 22, 2005)

I was making some shrimp on evening, before I knew about oil and varying smoking points.  So I turned the heat all the way up, added some EVOO, and tossed in my shrimp.  About a minute later I has flames up to the ceiling so I grabbed the ban, ran out the back door and flung the shrimp out into the night.  It was a bad toss, and a bunch of them landed on my g/f's car, and continued to burn.  I got them off as best I could without burning myself, and eventually all the flames went out.  Luckily there was no damage to the car, but my g/f's car sure looked like a mess, a smelled none too firendly either.


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## ironchef (Jul 22, 2005)

college_cook said:
			
		

> I was making some shrimp on evening, before I knew about oil and varying smoking points. So I turned the heat all the way up, added some EVOO, and tossed in my shrimp. About a minute later I has flames up to the ceiling so I grabbed the ban, ran out the back door and flung the shrimp out into the night. It was a bad toss, and a bunch of them landed on my g/f's car, and continued to burn. I got them off as best I could without burning myself, and eventually all the flames went out. Luckily there was no damage to the car, but my g/f's car sure looked like a mess, a smelled none too firendly either.


 
Wow your oil caught on fire AFTER you added in the shrimp??? That's pretty impressive. I've never seen that before.


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## spatulator (Jul 22, 2005)

college_cook said:
			
		

> I was making some shrimp on evening, before I knew about oil and varying smoking points. So I turned the heat all the way up, added some EVOO, and tossed in my shrimp. About a minute later I has flames up to the ceiling so I grabbed the ban, ran out the back door and flung the shrimp out into the night. It was a bad toss, and a bunch of them landed on my g/f's car, and continued to burn. I got them off as best I could without burning myself, and eventually all the flames went out. Luckily there was no damage to the car, but my g/f's car sure looked like a mess, a smelled none too firendly either.



LOL . that is a pretty funny mental image. You running out of the house and tossing flaming shrimp on your g/f car.


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## pdswife (Jul 22, 2005)

I think the worse mess I've ever made myself was the time I 
put the [size=-1]*asparigus on to steam... and forgot all about it.  No fire
but there sure was a lot of stinky smoke and my poor pan was ruined.
It took forever to get the smell out of the house.

My mom.. did put HOT HOT oil in a plastic container once.  I told her it would melt and she wouldn't listen to me. After all I was just a kid...  lol.  She poured 
it in and said "see, it didn't melt". Then she picked it up.  The top half came up
but the bottem melted to the counter and the oil spilled down on to the floor
and melted it too.    I loved saying "see, I told you so".  She didn't laugh. I
wonder why?  lol
*[/size]


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## Sandyj (Jul 23, 2005)

When my husband and I were first dating we decided to cook our first meal together. We didn't have our own stove, (nor pots & pans and utensils!) (and apparantly no common sense), so went upstairs to a neighbors to use her electric stove. Our menu: pork chops, peas, chips. I put the frozen peas in my aluminium tea-kettle, he did the chips in my girlfriend's ceramic pot. We were going to broil the chops (I seem to recall that we never thought of seasoning) in the oven. The peas cooked all right, and the chips were doing fine in the oil, but those pork chops just didn't want to be cooked. So, hubby turned off the plate and put a lid on the pot where the chips had finished frying in the hot oil - they were done, you see, and every few minutes we'd just keep checking those forever pink chops. They never did cook, and we gave up. When we finally had the sense to look in on the chips, they had turned to little pieces of charcoal, floating in the oil. The peas, thoroughly overcooked in the water in the tea pot, were edible, so we ate them and went to the bar (Rose & Shamrock) across the street. I have a worse story, but it's too shaming. -Sandyj


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## spatulator (Jul 24, 2005)

Sandyj said:
			
		

> I have a worse story, but it's too shaming. -Sandyj



 You can tell us. Can't be that bad.  Did you  burn down a kitchen?


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## Sandyj (Jul 24, 2005)

*Why didn't I just make PBJ?*

The first time my husband-to-be came to visit me, I was looking after my sister's family's house while she they were away. He arrived in the morning, and we talked and played records and were having a grand time getting to know each other. However, it began to get close to lunch, and I began to feel a bit panicky that I'd have to offer some food. I had no idea what to offer and no confidence whatsoever. This was in South Africa, and nobody really goes in for tinned/canned pre-prepared food, but I had been in the US for years, and it was the first thought I had (maybe my sister has a tin of spaghetti-os or something?). I began to wish he would just go home. Eventually, I could ignore our grumbling stomachs no more, and I made a feeble offer of lunch, by now desperately hoping he'd say no, but he didn't....I fished around in her cupboards, no tins. I looked deeper, moving to a storage pantry not even in the kitchen. At the back, behind Christmas things on a dark shelf, dusty with age, one lone tin of ravioli sat waiting. (you have no idea how unusual this was, for my sister/family, at the time! in retrospect I'm guessing that tin must have been there for years). Thank goodness. With relief, I opened it up, and poured the contents into a dish. A good inch of reddish oil was on top of some dubious looking raviolis. Even I could see it didn't look right. But, I pressed on. Poured off the oil, found and grated some cheddar to sprinkle on top to disguise it a bit, and stuck it in the oven under the broiler. Sliced and buttered some bread, poured out some cold milk, set the table, seated new boyfriend. Fetched the ravioli. Brought to table. His eyes widened in horror when I set it down. Ok, I know it's bad, I'm thinking, but not that bad. What's he looking at? I looked down to where his eyes were fixed, and there in the center of the cheese was a fly, kicking it's leg in the last throes of death. Gallantly, soon2bDH fished it out, dished up a heaping plate full and proceeded to eat. Personally, I just stuck with a slice of bread and some milk. Finally, the meal was over and he left. That night he was sick, and for about three weeks after, every time he saw me, he'd get sick. I'm amazed we made it past the first date. -Sandy


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## BBQ Fish (Jul 24, 2005)

My worst experience was the first time introduced to a Mandolin and working with the julienne blade. 

As luck would have it, i was distracted, and a split second later, 7 cuts in my left thumb.


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## kyles (Jul 24, 2005)

High school, cooking stupid potato cake thingies. Old stove, big pan, lots of oil, stove in corner, group of teenage girls in the way, chatting. Kyles trying to keep an eye on the oil, oops, too late, flames hitting ceiling. Pleasantly plump cooking teacher flying across the room with a box of salt and a lid, rescuing us all from certain death.

The only consolation is later in the day, another kid in another class managed to tip a pile of sodium into some water, causing a massive explosion and the whole school had to close down for the day, so no one remembered my aborted attempt to burn down the school!


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## kadesma (Jul 24, 2005)

Oh Lord Kyles,

You got lucky on that one...You just made my day sharing that story.. 
kadesma


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## tweedee (Jul 24, 2005)

The worst huh?. Well that was about 25 years ago when I put a beef tongue on to boil and sat down and fell asleep. Needless to say that when I woke-up the water in the pot was long gone, the tongue was dry as a bone and the house was filled with smoke.


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## spatulator (Jul 24, 2005)

tweedee said:
			
		

> ...beef tongue...



EWWWW. Has anyone else here ever had that? You couldn't pay me to eat that.


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## Barbara L (Jul 25, 2005)

My mom was moving something on the stove and a lid flipped boiling hot oil all over her chest.  She really should have gone to the hospital, but with no insurance and no money (and I think a fear of doctors), she didn't.  She was burning so bad that she couldn't sleep.  My dad didn't know what to do, so he grabbed the closest thing handy, the Chloroseptic spray (we just call it "the green stuff") and sprayed it all over the burn. It stopped the burning so that she was able to sleep, and we have used it on minor burns ever since.  

 Barbara


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## spatulator (Jul 25, 2005)

Barbara L said:
			
		

> My mom was moving something on the stove and a lid flipped boiling hot oil all over her chest. She really should have gone to the hospital, but with no insurance and no money (and I think a fear of doctors), she didn't. She was burning so bad that she couldn't sleep. My dad didn't know what to do, so he grabbed the closest thing handy, the Chloroseptic spray (we just call it "the green stuff") and sprayed it all over the burn. It stopped the burning so that she was able to sleep, and we have used it on minor burns ever since.
> 
> Barbara



Ouch. That must have left alot of scars.


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## ironchef (Jul 25, 2005)

Spatulator, reading all of your replies on this thread makes me think that you are a masochist.


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## spatulator (Jul 25, 2005)

ironchef said:
			
		

> Spatulator, reading all of your replies on this thread makes me think that you are a masochist.



lol, quite the opposite. I'm a baby when it comes to pain. The worst are friction burns like when you fall of a bike.


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## Claire (Jul 25, 2005)

I've got so many stories I could write a book, since I'm always the one who liked to cook.  

I love grilling ribs - what I call brontosauras ribs, the big beefy ones, which I marinate kal-bi style and cook on the rare side.  Well, one friend who isn't a big meat eater anyway, bit in and hit an odd vein which for some reason hadn't been cooked, and it spurted blood everywhere.  You'd have thought she hit an artery of a living person.  Blood on her, her husband, the table.  It is a true sign of friendship (or perhaps that my cooking is that good!) that she stopped, wiped up herself and dabbed everyone who got sprinkled, and just took another bite and kept on eating.


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## spatulator (Jul 25, 2005)

Claire said:
			
		

> I've got so many stories I could write a book, since I'm always the one who liked to cook.
> 
> I love grilling ribs - what I call brontosauras ribs, the big beefy ones, which I marinate kal-bi style and cook on the rare side. Well, one friend who isn't a big meat eater anyway, bit in and hit an odd vein which for some reason hadn't been cooked, and it spurted blood everywhere. You'd have thought she hit an artery of a living person. Blood on her, her husband, the table. It is a true sign of friendship (or perhaps that my cooking is that good!) that she stopped, wiped up herself and dabbed everyone who got sprinkled, and just took another bite and kept on eating.



lol, that is disgusting. If there were any vegetarians at that table they would have lost it.


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## Barbara L (Jul 26, 2005)

spatulator said:
			
		

> Ouch. That must have left alot of scars.


Amazingly, I don't think it did.  

 Barbara


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## Raven (Jul 31, 2005)

Two words... _TANG CAKE _

I was trying to invent an orange cake using Tang 

Oy VEY was it nasty! 

~ Raven ~


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## spatulator (Jul 31, 2005)

Raven said:
			
		

> Two words... _TANG CAKE _
> 
> I was trying to invent an orange cake using Tang
> 
> ...



Tang by itself is pretty nasty, I couldn't even fathom the taste of it in a cake. 

Speaking of Tang, I tried this stuff called V8 Splash the other day and it was like tang only with real fruit juice. It was really good.


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