I have perpetrated some seriously heinous kitchen disasters
in my day. There was the time that I dropped the lid of the crock pot from the height
of about 7 feet. I was on a stool getting it off a high shelf and the lid slid
off backwards crashing to the floor in a shower of glass particles that looked like
a rain of indoor hail. There was that one time that I was pureeing steamed
mustard greens to make Saag and the bowl of the food processor slipped out of
my hands spattering the front of the cabinets, the floor, the refrigerator
across the room, myself and the baby who was in one of those bouncy “gym”
thingies with a finely pureed mash of spiced greens. There was the time I brilliantly decided to “cool
off” two hot lasagna pans by spraying them with cold water. Thermal shock, it’s a thing. It’s not a good
thing. My love of durable surfaces means
that glassware is basically not safe in my kitchen, cast iron sinks, tile floors,
let’s just say that I can estimate the blast radius of a dropped Correll plate
with an uncanny accuracy.
I’m telling you this so that you know me to be an expert in
kitchen disasters, so that when I tell you that I experienced the pinnacle of
culinary catastrophes that you’ll understand I am not talking about a chipped
wine glass, or a dropped mug of hot chocolate but an honest to Goddess, 4 alarm
CRIME SCENE.
To set the mood. I’m
getting ready for a dinner party, because I like to torture myself
apparently. Actually it’s because
inviting people over to my house is pretty much the only thing that will
inspire me to clean my house and if I don’t host people on a semi-regular basis
we would all be living in a nest of dirty socks, toys, soiled dishes and sweaty
sports bras. So I’m cleaning my
house. Also there’s a bunch of rhubarb
wilting on the counter top which needs to be either cooked or discarded that
day, also I’m making a tart crust, also I haven’t had my second cup of coffee
yet, also my children seem to think I should feed them or something. So basically just your every day Saturday
morning at our house.
Oh wait there’s something else you need to know. I hate
electric stoves. I hate them, but that’s
what I currently have because until it’s broken I can’t justify replacing it.
So I decide to blind bake a pie crust for the rhubarb pie while
I’m mixing up my tart crust recipe, making coffee, loading the dishwasher, and
toasting bread to feed the children. Put
toast in the toaster, separate egg for tart crust, find container for the egg
white so that I don’t waste it, coffee is done, pour coffee in cup, put butter
on toast, put tart dough in the fridge to firm up, put away dishes and reload
the dishwasher, pie crust is done, pull pie out of the oven and place on
stovetop before running upstairs to change out of pajamas.
Halfway up the stairs I hear a noise that sounds like the
children have thrown a box of legos across the room, or possibly turned over a
bookshelf full of board games. It’s a
crash combined with the tinkle of many small objects being flung in every
direction.
“What did you break!?!” I
yell from the stairs.
“NOTHING!!” comes the indignant response of 3 falsely
accused children.
I said something else
which might have been “BULLSHIT!” but I won’t publicly admit to yelling
something like that at three darling innocents who were just minding their own
business.
I rush back down stairs.
There has been an explosion.
 |
| This is after I've cleaned up quite a bit. |
It
takes me a few seconds to figure out what I’m looking at. The glass pie plate has shattered, shards of
glass in every direction, the pie pastry still on the stove with the parchment
paper and dried beans from the blind bake starting to smoke. There are pops as more glass shards jump from
the stove top, and I realize that I left the burner on after making coffee in
the stove top coffee maker. And that
means that I set the pie plate down on a hot burner that was cranked up to one
notch below “hi” and that if I don’t get to the stove to turn it off my glass,
pastry and bean explosion will turn into an actual on fire explosion. So I tip-toe through the shards of pyrex
while yelling at my children “DO NOT COME IN HERE! NO ONE COME IN HERE!” and I
turn off the stove.
 |
| The only recognizable things were the handles. |
Basically everything
in my kitchen is covered in glass glitter.
There are shards of glass wedged between the coils of the stove, there
are dry beans covering my entire stove top. One handle of the pie plate is
wedged under the fridge and the other one is 10 feet away from it on the
counter top. I start separating the pile of smoking debris on my stove top with
a pair of salad tongs since everything is too hot to touch.
 |
| The other handle bounced off this jug of vodka...which I didn't even start drinking! |
I estimate it took me about two hours to return the scene of
the crime to a habitable state. My kitchen has never been cleaner. I wiped down parts of my countertops that
probably haven’t seen a damp cloth since the day they were installed. The container of utensils next to the stove
dumped out so that glass bits could be rinsed from inside it. I swept, swept again and then mopped. I MOPPED. I had to vacuum out the inside of
my stove.
 |
| Oh nothing, just vacuuming glass dust out of my stove. What are YOU up to? |
The obvious moral of this story is that electric stoves are evil. What are the chances that I would accidentally put a glass pie plate onto a gas burner that was cranked up to hi? ZERO. Because it would have FIRE shooting out of it and even my cavewoman brain is able to figure out that you shouldn’t set a glass pie plate down on something with FIRE shooting out of it.
There might be a lesson here too about trying to do too many
things at once, or maybe it’s a cautionary tale about the dangers of trying to
clean your house while making pie…
Nope. Just that electric stove thing. That’s the only caution in this tale.
