donger need food.

"Cursed." Or: Stupid Things You Should NOT Do In The Kitchen

I think my kitchen is cursed...First the exploding baking dish, and now this:

With my brother in town, I figure we'd have sauteed pork chops for dinner. So, like I always do in the past, I pull out the big heavy cast iron skillet, turn the stove to "Hi" and let it sit there. I let it sit. And sit. And sit. It gets white hot, but I'm busy chopping onions for the red wine reduction sauce. So I let it sit some more. It's there twice as long as I usually put it on there, but I figure the hotter the better! When ready, I slice a couple of pats of butter and throw them in there...

Bad Move.

They start smoking like a V8 in an old El Camino after getting a SeaFoam treatment....plumes of white smoke instantly fill the kitchen.

The fire alarm goes off.

I try tilting the pan to spread the butter around, but one of them pops with a loud "bang" and hits me in the arm. I'm staring at these little pats of butter, watching the neat streams of white smoke pour out from them (how could a 1.5" square of fat generate so much smoke?), and then it happens...

The skillet bursts into flames.

Not one to panic, I ignore the fire extinguisher on the floor next to the stove (I really like my skillet!!) and reach for a cover. I throw the lid on it and put out the flames. Thinking that the worst is over and I could *finally* throw those big thick juicy pieces of pork on there, I lift the cover and it's fine.

For about 30 seconds.

And then "poof"...more flames. With the bright yellow fingers of fire reflecting in my eyes, I abort the mission by replacing the cover and waiting. I switch to another pan. And finish the dinner.


Cursed, I tells ya.

posted by VirtualErn @ 7:19 PM 4 comments

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It pays to read

After having such a wonderful Labor Day weekend cleaning and working on cars (ah, the joy of having a garge!) I decided to treat us to a nice halibut dinner. Looking to my trusty Fish: The Basics book, the recipe called for broiling: highest heat possible, with the fish as close as possible to the top of the oven. So I poured some cheap white wine to a depth of an eighth of an inch in the glass baking dish, set the fillet on top, and stuck it in the oven.

About five minutes into the cook, I realized I had forgotten to baste the fish with some butter. And there was a weird funky smell emanating from the oven...no matter. So my face gets hit with a furnace-like blast of heat as I pop open the oven door (mental note: don't stick your face near oven when you open door). And I reach in there with my neat-o black Neoprene oven mitts. Grab the dish and proceeded to take it out and place it on the stove. But it never makes it...

With a loud "pop" sounding like someone dropping a 50 pound sledgehammer on a car window, the dish (literally) explodes into a billion glass fragments. They all rain down across the stove top and the oven door, with my poor little (expensive) piece of fish plopped on the stove filled with glass. Luckily, we escaped major injury. But that fish was done. What a way to end a weekend: more cleaning. I was too much in shock to think about taking any pictures, but just imagine a bunch of smoke-colored glass covering a black stovetop and all over the open oven door, with yours truly standing in disbelief with his black neoprene gloves on.

The next day I was rereading the recipe and it states: "place the fish skin side down in the metal pan".

Right.

posted by VirtualErn @ 10:31 AM 2 comments

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