One day last week, when I was at work, Toney mentioned that she’d “burned the hell” out of some quesadillas in the oven. I guess she put them in, got preoccupied with a phone call, and everything spiraled downward from there. By the time the smoke alarms started chirpin’, the only thing left was three black, smoldering discs.
I remember her telling me this, but didn’t give it much thought at the time. It was more of an exasperated, informational kind of thing. But on Saturday it all came flooding back…
My employer gave us a frozen turkey during the run-up to Christmas. But since we’d already bought one, we stuck the work-turkey in the basement freezer. And on Saturday Toney decided she was gonna cook it. In fact, she’d planned ahead and moved the basketball o’ meat from the deep freeze to the fridge, several days in advance. You know, for thawing purposes.
On Saturday morning she turned on the oven to pre-heat, and the house filled with a horrible stink. Then the smoke alarms started going off again. WTS? I came running, to see what was going on, and the main floor of our house was all smoked-up. Good god! I almost needed a miner’s helmet to navigate through the darkness.
“I cleaned the oven after those quesadillas, but I guess I didn’t do a very good job?” Toney said, while throwing open windows all around the place.
“Something’s on fire in there!” I shouted. It was true. Inside the oven was a six-inch flame, burning with great vigor and showing no signs of weakening.
“What is that, a cheese fire?” I wondered. “Should we just let it burn itself out, or what? I didn’t even know cheese was flammable?!”
We stood in the smoky kitchen, staring at the eternal flame through the window on the front of our stove door. And at one point I saw the flames leap to something nearby, possibly a slice of green pepper.
“You say you cleaned that oven?” I said. “There are vegetables in there!” This was followed by no reply whatsoever.
And did you know that green peppers don’t burn nearly as long as cheese does? Until Saturday, I didn’t either.
It was unbelievable. You should’ve seen our house! The place was full of smoke, and the boys were holding napkins up to their noses, and engaging in exaggerated coughing jags. Andy even puked by the front door. But he’s a puker-dog, so it’s unclear if that had anything to do with the oven fiasco.
The fire eventually stopped burning, and Toney announced she was going to engage the self-cleaning function of the oven. I asked how long that takes, and she said four hours.
“So it’s pizza for dinner, instead of turkey?” I said.
“I don’t think anyone will shed a tear,” she answered.
Toney punched a few beeping buttons on the stove, and the display read: CLEANING. Then the thing got impossibly hot. The amount of heat rolling off that box was scary, like a smelting furnace, or something. Sweet sainted mother of an alcoholic glass blower…
And the funk! It transformed several times throughout the process, and changed flavor (or whatever). But all were fairly disgusting. Near the end it smelled almost metallic, like a Translucent bowel movement.
It was horrible, and amazing. I think there was nuclear fusion happening inside our oven, and when it was over there was nothing but a post-apocalyptic landscape in there. It was like the Road Warrior inside that bitch.
Do you have any kitchen horror stories to tell? You know… fires, explosions, floods, decapitations, etc.? If so, tell us about it in the comments.
And I’ll see you guys again tomorrow.
Have a great day!
First?
??
top 5 two days in a row! and I read the story first!!
TW had a stove-top fire while friends from New Zealand were visiting–the husband being a mucky-muck in the NZ fire brigade. At the height of the fire there were Kiwi shouts of “Where’s the bicarb? Where’s the bicarb?” and TW and I were stumped–WTF were they shouting about? Ohhhh….sodium bicarbonate, aka baking soda. THAT we could produce. The fire was soon out.
Oh, and “almost first!”.
I worked with a guy at Corning Glass Works who married a girl who…how can I put this…she would never be hassled during a Mensa Club membership drive. One day he went home from work to find his new bride on the couch in the fetal position sobbing uncontrollably. All she could do was point toward the kitchen. He said it looked as though Chef Boyardee had blown up real good in there. There was spagetti hanging from the ceiling and running down the walls.
When he was able to get her to talk she told him she did just what it said to do on the can of Spagetti-O’s. Heat contents of can. Seems simple enough. She had put the unopened can in a pan on the stove and turned on the heat and waited for it to get hot. Hilarity ensued.
“Burning down the house
My house is out of the ordinary
That’s right, don’t want to hurt nobody
Some things sure can sweep me off my feet
Burning down the house”
I read an article about some guy getting sentenced to 8 years in a federal-pound-me-in-the-ass prison for stealing $3 worth of cheese. And now it makes sense.
It seems as though that with a common house hold appliance you can make a simple rotten pile of cow tit juice into a compound more volitale than Lunchables-level refined uranium.
I currently live in an apartment and it is in my lease that no cooking devices of any kind are allowed to be used on the balcony. Needless to say, I have an electric barbeque out there. (Not as good as a gas BBQ but I thus avoid walking through the building with propane tanks, plus hydro is included in the rent so it doesn’t cost me to use it.) I’ve had a couple of nice grill fires out there, including one that produced 12-18 inch orange flames. Now I’m from outside the city and have camped a lot, so a small fire is no big deal to me and certainly no reason to panic. I do happen to keep a charged fire extinguisher nearby, just in case. However, my building is full of new-to-this-country city folk and man, do they ever come flying to the windows…like moths to a flame.
great update, Jeff! nice one 🙂
A friend of mine is doing time in Iraq and his girlfriend called me in a panic. She haden’t eaten all day and she couldn’t figure out how to cook a frozen dinner lasagna. She said she had ruined 3 so far and she wanted to make sure the last one in the house was done properly.
I asked her to read the instructions on the box to me and she replied, “hold on, let me get it out.” I assumed she meant to get it out of the trash, but then I heard the microwave door open through the phone.
She had been sticking the unopend box of frozen lasagna brick in the mocrowave. She did this FOUR TIMES.
She cooked and entire box of frozen lasagna to a smoldering pile of cardboard pulp, lava-like tomato sause, and glass brittle noodles 3 times before she called me.
She blamed the box for not telling her to remove the packaging. I blame her for being a damn fool.
No horror stories but if that happens again pour salt on the fire and it will go out. You can then sweep up the salt and throw it away. Doesn’t hurt to clean it once in a while though!!! 🙂
Back in my drinking days… I put a pot of water on for spaghetti. Now something I saw my mother do was put some Olive oil in the water so the strands don’t stick together. Well I did that and realized I had no wine. So I ran down and bought a gallon of wine( I was eating alone or it would have been two gallons) and when I got back the smoke alarm in my apt was screaming. I opened the door and all the water was gone and the olive oil was in flames. Another few minutes and the hall smoke alarm would have called the fire dept. I put a cover on it and got it out. I figured I had enough excitment for one night so I drank the wine. I think I ate something frozen later. ( I DO mean frozen) My teeth were sore the next day… I took stock of that night and figured I had a problem. So I gave up spaghettie…
Is that you and Andy in the bunker cam???
The smell of an oven self-cleaning is god-awful.
My best kitchen incident involved making jerked chicken. The recipe called for the chicken to be coated in the jerk spices (basically cayenne pepper, pepper, peppers and crushed peppers) and then put in an ungreased hot, hotter, hottest cast iron skillet. I dumped the chicken in and was immediately engulfed in a cloud of burning pepper smoke. The peppers made water SHOOT out of my eyes, and I inhaled a lungful and couldn’t breathe. I backed off and the cloud got bigger until I could barely see the stovetop. My brain was telling me to get the damned thing off the burner and my lungs were telling me to bail and let the place burn down. From then out, I’ve left jerked and blackened to restaurants. [cough]
Get yer one ob dem dang fangled kayserdela makers. Takes the gurse werk oudda macon dem kayserdelas and da missez darnt benrd dem dings up eni mar. Yehar!
Ok, Shiny side out…
guy down the row of apt’s from me put frozen fish in the oven and promptly fell asleep in a drunken stupor in his living room. luckily i heard the smoke alarm go off, called the fire dept, they broke the door down and got him out of there. not much left of the fish….
setting in a restaurant late one night, heard a woosh and an “oh shit”. saw flames shooting up in the kitchen! someone grabbed a fire extinguisher but it was empty. heard a call for salt so they grabbed salt shakers and ran for the back room where I heard, “no, the bucket dumbass”. they proceeded to pour salt on it and put it out. by that time the fire dept. had already been called so a few minutes later they pull up to the side door that had the emergency bar on it and yelled for someone to open the door. the manager tried to tell them she didn’t have the key to the alarm but they told her to open it or they were going to smash the glass, mind you the fire is out by this time. she had to open the door which filled the place with an ear piercing screech. luckily we were done with our meal and got the hell out of there….
You can fuck cheese but you can never really trust it.
So..I guess we ain’t seein’ any damn snow pictures, huh? Wotta blue ribbon bastid.
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters……
When the missus and I were first married, we rented a tiny little 2 story house. But it was more like half a house. Doll house-esque. So, it was small..?
Wife fell asleep on the couch while boiling pierogies. I was already in bed. About 2 in the morning the smoke detectors went off. Here the water had boiled completely away and left those little dumplings of goodness defenseless against the scorching hot kettle. They were reduced to smoldering black briquettes.
At the time I was a volunteer in the local fire department. I drove over to the station and borrowed an evacuation fan. This mother had the power of a 747 jet engine. Placed the fan in the front door, opened up the back door & all the windows(which were already opened) and let it do it’s job.
Tiny house cleared out of all noxious fumes in about 20 minutes or so, but the smell of incinerated pierogies lingered for months.
Years ago, I use to work the graveyard shift at a 7 eleven store. Quite often people would place apacket of mustard in the microwave, turn it on and walk out of the store. Of course, the mustard packet would swell..then burst, leaving a fine splattered mess all over the inside of the microwave for me to clean up.
But that doesn’t really count as a kitchen disaster story now, does it?
Neighbor used automatic setting on oven to cook pork roast while she was out of town for the day, it didn’t shut down, she came home to grease pit pork smoke through her entire house. Mom boiled eggs while watching her hour long soap, had to throw out the pan because she couldn’t even chop the charred eggs off the bottom. I set fire to paper towels while making french fries on gas stove (for draining off grease, set conveniently right next to pan), picked up the damn flaming thing and carried it across the kitchen to throw in sink. Dumb. Mom also preheated the oven without checking, melted plastic bowls, loaves of bread, pan lids. She used oven for extra storage. Dad once told her that he didn’t know beef pot roast came any other way than charred. Hubby cooked burger and hotdogs on backyard open fire, got busy, flames could be seen from across the street. Tried to melt those candy coating disks in microwave and burned them to a stinking crisp. I’ve been told that a burning pop tart in the toaster can throw flames 5-6 feet high and will burn for at least 15 minutes, but haven’t tried it. I am actually a very good cook.
I had (have) a bad habit of putting water on for tea then forgetting about it.
My step mom often forgets about a pot on the stove. She puts something on to warm up, then gets involved in another activity and forgets that she’s got something on the stove. Once, it did catch flames and badly scorched the cupboard doors above the stove.
Almost forgot. Daughter’s boyfriend’s mother put roast in oven and set it to clean. As you know, it cannot be opened during that 4 hours. At least it cleaned up it’s own mess. The rest of the house took a bit longer.
If you have senior citizens / elderly parents in your life, are more prone to these type of kitchen disasters than us younger folks. Let these stories be a wake up call to all of us!! A house fire is no laughing matter!
I cooked a frozen pizza @ 425 for six hours once, it’s amazing how much they shrink when they’re baked that long. After that episode I started using the gas grill to bake frozen pizza when in a drunken stupor, frozen pizza $4.00, 6 hours of propane $8.00, not being reminded of how futile it is to go against Dean Wormer’s classic advice for three months, Priceless!
I was, in a past life, in charge of the kitchen at my church. We had “family Sunday” dinners once a month and we all brought a dish to share. I decided since I was in the kitchen anyway I would broil fish and serve that because someone had given me a ridiculous amount of cod. So I broiled it in the kitchen and proceeded to make the entire place smell like a vagina full of bad decisions. It was hilarious!! The entire congregation looking around trying to figure out what the hell was going on. NO fire though.
About 10 years ago my now ex had put meat/soup bones to boil on the stove. I frequently give them to our dogs…keeps them busy for hours. He puts them on a medium light, forgets and leaves the house to go to a friend’s house a few blocks away for Sunday dinner where I was to meet him after shopping. Luckily, an observant neighbor from across the alley, sitting on their back porch, saw flames shooting from the stove and called the fire department.
We’re down the block and hear fire engines getting closer and closer. Suddenly, my ex jumps up from the table realizing he left the bones boiling on the stove. He’s haulin’ ass running down the block because he know the fire department would ax down the front door. That good-fer-nuttin-piece-o-shit never moved so fast in his life.
He barely beat the firemen there. What a fiasco. Smoke filled the house. They put those heavy-duty fans all over the house to blow the smoke out. Those mutha’s could blow a small car onto it’s side. Shit was everywhere. Luckily the fire was only contained to the pot the bones were in. But the mess was ridiculous.
“make the entire place smell like a vagina full of bad decisions. ”
QOTD
TILLY: “a vagina full of bad decisions…” What a good belly laugh! Awesome.
Here here on the vagina comment.
I’d like to buy the world a coke……
@30 miles south, I worked in a 7-11 for a couple of years myself. Never had the dubious pleasure of dealing with microwave vandalism, but did have regulars who thought deliberately making huge messes with the condiments was entertainment.
When our oldest child was an infant, my wife was convinced that she had to sterilize bottle nipples before each use. She put on a pot of water to boil, once it started to boil she threw in the clean nipples, and the baby started crying in the next room. The boiling nipples were completely forgotten about until they a charred black mass engulfed in blueish green flame. Luckily she had enough sense to just grab the pot and throw it into the yard. There was no damage from the smoke or anything, but the smell was horrible. Vulcanized rubber stinks like nothing else. We had to boil vinegar 4 or 5 times to kill that smell. Needless to say the next two kids drank from silicone nipples that got sterilized in the dish washer.
<>
Really funny!!!! I just nosed a half pint of root beer. I’ll send the cleaning bill.
I have had some turkey deep frying disasters. FYI if the turkey is still frozen and it hits 350 degree grease, it kind of explodes.
TS
So I broiled it in the kitchen and proceeded to make the entire place smell like a vagina full of bad decisions.
That was meant for Tilly
Well, where do I start…..
The most recent kitchen fire to come to my attention was caused by one of my tenants. They didn’t report it of course, and we just discovered it today while doing some other repairs. Soot everywhere (because why would you clean after a fire), including on the windows, so we now need to replace the kitchen counter and cabinets, seal and paint the walls, and replace the sealed units in the windows.
(Note: If you have a kitchen fire, even a minor one, clean immediately! Or better yet pay to have a disaster restoration company do it .)
The one before that was caused by a tenant who put her “magic bag” in the microwave for 45 minutes to heat up. It burst into flames in 10 minutes. Apparently she meant 4.5 minutes, but those pesky decimal places are so hard to keep track of.
Then there was the alcoholic I had in an apartment building who would turn soup on high then pass out, only to be awakened by the fire department. He did that twice before we could get an eviction.
The one before that was caused by the tenant who wouldn’t use pans when she cooks. She lined the oven with tinfoil and used the oven racks as a grill. We’re going to court with her to make her pay for the 3 stoves she ruined. The best part is after the first oven fire she demanded a “new” stove rather than the used one I gave her.
Before that was another unreported fire that only came to light after the tenant skipped town. Ten thousand to repair the kitchen but the bonus was the engine they were trying to rebuild in the living room.
Before that was the druggie who lit her kitchen on fire one morning at 8 am while using her water toke.
Then was there was the other druggie who lit her kitchen on fire one night while doing hot-knives.
But the best kitchen fire is still the mentally ill tenant who had her hydro cut off so she used the kitchen sink as a barbecue for a week. That cost over $25,000 to fix.
Hey Toney!!! How are you? I have been emailing your wife who said a few minutes ago that she wants to live with you again before you lose your looks!! LOL
Let us just say Tilly has made a few bad decisions in her life.
Tilly, now THAT’S a phrase I will work in to a project review tomorrow – I’m sure my director will be impressed.
Most of my fires are outside on the BBQ – fortunately…. I had a really cool burger fire once – not flames but rather flame – one solid piece of fire that was 26″ x 18″ x 3 ft high.. Cajun style! Come git er!!!
Jeff, y’all are pussies as far as kitchen catastrophes go.
Among others: stoned roommate who left tupperware in the broiler while engaging the self-clean. Took two more passes of self-cleaning to get rid of the funk. Cranky landlord on that one, but he got over it because we pretty much cleaned up our own mess eventually.
Same roommate used a spray-bottle of starting fluid and a cigarette lighter as a fly-swatter and set the wallpaper on fire. Landlord really didn’t see the humor in that one.
There was the sink full of fuzzy dishes that the roommate was going to wash. Started it filling with water and went for another toke (seeing a pattern here?) and forgot about it. I came home to brownish-green water running out the back door. I threw away the dishes and made a trip to Goodwill for replacements.
There was my homebrew, where the bubbler on top of the fermenter got clogged by something. That “painted” the entire kitchen ceiling with half-made beer.
And don’t even get me started on the living room, where such hi-jinks as volleyball with the bag from the inside of a box of wine (mostly empty, filled with air) got used for playing volleyball until it got into the ceiling fan and brought the fan down, complete with arcs from the wires pulled out of the ceiling.
Well in our last house every fall we would end up with a mouse that would get into the house. Hubby thought he had the problem solved, but sure enough one of the little vermin got into the house again. This one was slightly smarter than the previous ones. To avoid our cats, he decided to follow the gas pipe up the wall into the kitchen.
Now this gas pipe was installed by my hubby, so the installation was less than professional, there was a lot of room around the pipe where it came out behind the stove.
One Sunday afternoon, I go to turn on the gas oven to make supper. I hear the tick of the ignitor, followed by the WOOSH of the flame turning on….which was promptly followed by a very loud EEP from inside the stove. About 30 sec later the entire house filled with the stench of burning mouse. We turned off the oven, and tore it apart. Couldn’t find anything that was left of the mouse. One can only guess he was basically vaporized.
So I turned the oven to the CLEAN cycle. It was probably the coldest darn day of the winter, and we had EVERY window in the house open to ventilate. The smell had to be the worst thing I’ve ever smelled.
4 hr later when it finished, we again tore the thing apart, and cleaned every inch of the oven as best as we could.
However for months afterwards every once in awhile the stink would come back…..
So a few months later when the stove started to have ‘issues’ that thing went on the sidewalk faster than you can imagine. The bad part is that someone actually took the thing from our sidewalk. Pitty the fool who got that thing!
On New Years Eve we were hosting a small gathering and I had some food in the oven about an hour before people were supposed to arrive.
I was passing through the kitchen, taking care of the last minute stuff when I looked at the (electric) oven door and saw blue-white sparks shooting around. It looked like someone was trapped in my oven and using an arc welder to cut his way to freedom.
I turned off the oven, but the sparks continued to fly. I was thiniing about the fire extinguisher at this point, but decided to to turn off the breaker and see what happened. Luckily that did the job.
The next day (the party went off as planned, the Microwave fnished the food) I ttok the bake element out and found that about 6 linear inches of the coating on the element had been burned away.
$35 and a trip to the appliance repair store and I was back in business.
This is more gross than scary…our first postage stamp house was old. It came with its own compliment of mice, not because we are gross but from nature itself. using the stove I started to notice a distinct stink I could not place. Further exploration found the mice had been moving dog food in a massive quantity under the burners, on the foam crap between stove and oven. then it would burn when the oven was on…on my gosh the smell. There could have been some mice in there and we couldn’t tell you the smell was horrifiying.
If I see a mouse in our current house, I am moving.
Never attempt (however appealing it may sound) to DRY half of a pound of fresh rosemary in your oven.
“Think of the money we’ll save!”,
“…seems a waste to just throw it out.”,
“We can give it as a gift!”.
Trust me.
BAD IDEA!
The noxious emanations (I was gonna’ say “smell”, but that doesn’t quite convey the experience) that came off of this stuff was INCREDIBLE!
It triggered gag reflexes and nausea in everyone in the house.
…and it LINGERED for three days!
I would gladly go back to Basic Training and spend a solid weekend in the “Gas House” before I EVER smell the likes of that again.
HEED MY WARNING!
…pony-up and just grab a package at the grocery store next time.
.
No really bad incidents but just the” makings of” if not for fast reflexes. Mine seem to occur when using oil for cooking. I just don’t seem to have the knack to realize the oil is very hot and I shouldn’t let ANY type of liquid (water) near it. Last time, there was oil was shooting out everywhere. Contained it with the lid. Wow!
And, my last self-cleaning oven actually stated in the instructions that I should not leave small pets (birds) alone (with no ventilation) while the stove does its business. The fumes will kill the birds.
Lots of long comments here, Dude. At least nine that are not suitable for Short Attention Span Theater. To be sure, they are “on topic”, but one man’s topic is another man’s blog. I’m using blog as a noun there.
best wishes,
jtb
From kitchen disasters to kitchen miracles, plus its from Scranton, PA.
http://onequickbeer.com/2010/03/02/the-best-religious-icon-sighting-in-food-youll-see-today.aspx
Coffee grounds burn like a torch, too.
I set some grounds in the oven to dry the other day and forgot about them…
Until I turned on the broiler, anyway. The entire NEIGHBORHOOD now knows about it.
Tyrosine,
you said a druggie was doing hot knives. What the hell is that? And what does it mean to have your hydro cut off? Is hydro gas?
I was once drunk and starving in an apartment, I think I was 22 at the time. The only thing I had in the fridge was a giant bottle of Ranch dressing. I decided to heat it in a pot and eat it as soup. Next thing I know the smoke alarm was going off. I was passed out on the couch and when the smell hit me I barfed on the coffee table. I threw a lid on it and sat it on the back patio.
Interesting. The lesson here seems to be not to attempt anything more advanced than opening a bag of Doritos after around BAC .10. Me, I never have the motivation to actually cook anything after a few beers. I mean, I’ll eat just about anything that comes in a can, bag or box, but I don’t fire up the stove. I guess I do have a bit of self preservation left in me.
Why would you dry coffee grounds? I put them on my hot pepper plants sometimes (the plants love them) but I don’t dry them first.
plastic bag left on a toaster oven = new toaster oven
On IPOD: Junior Kimbrough- You Better Run