| Author | Message | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 1504 Registered: 3-2004  |
On this forum we discuss some very serious things, things that affect our salvation and our relationship with God. That is well and good, but I want to tell you how human I am and PLEASE, laugh with me. First I am not a cook. It is not my favorite thing to do. My son has told me I am the only person he knows who burns toast, using a toaster. My younger sister has a cooker that she used to make string chicken. She slow cooks it and when it is done it falls apart so easily. She makes enchiladas with it. Well, I wanted some chicken and two weeks ago I cooked a number of boneless pieces and it lasted about a week. Last night I decided to cook some more, seeing as I was so successful 2 weeks ago. So I put 4 pieces in my pan of water with garlic, chile powder, cumin, oregano, salt. I put a low fire under it. Then I came to the computer and did my on line traffic school. Yea, I got a ticket and am doing traffic school on line. DO NOT EVERY DO IT ON LINE. I will explain at another time. After the on line traffic school, I came to the forum and as I do when I come here, I forget everything going on around me. Yes, I forgot the chicken. I smelled something, but thought what I do not remember, then I saw the smoke in my front room and it was coming into my den. Luckily the fan in the front room was on. I rushed to the kitchen and turned off my burning chicken. The water had dried up and the bottom of the pan was black. The chicken was stuck to the pan. I was able to cut off part of it, but the majority was stuck in the pan. I had to laught at myself, because I had smelled it and did not pay attention until the smoke filled the front room. I opened the front door and the windows in the kitchen, and turned on the stove fan. By the time I went to bed, the smoke was gone and so was the smell. Lesson learned, do not cook chicken when I am on the forum. I hope you all laugh with me as I think it was hilarious. I am so glad God sees my humanity, my single mindedness when I am doing something I enjoy and I am sure He laughs with me. Diana | ||
| Riverfonz Registered user Username: Riverfonz Post Number: 308 Registered: 3-2005 |
Diana, Thanks for sharing, and as on another thread, I was rejoicing with you, now I laugh with you. Yes, sometimes our conversation can be too serious, and it is good for all of us to laugh at ourselves. Stan | ||
| Redhorsewoman Registered user Username: Redhorsewoman Post Number: 4 Registered: 5-2005 |
Aha! You have now learned a new method of making bricks. LOL | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 1509 Registered: 3-2004 |
I can tell you have a delightful sense of humor. I think the making bricks comment is delightful and I am sitting here laughing. Diana | ||
| Melissa Registered user Username: Melissa Post Number: 883 Registered: 7-2003  |
And how THANKFUL there was no other casualty besides a pan and a bird. Ya coulda burned the joint down....  | ||
| Drpatti Registered user Username: Drpatti Post Number: 12 Registered: 4-2005 |
Why not take the driving course online, Diana? I have to take one soon. | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 1510 Registered: 3-2004 |
Here in Nevada the online course I found is done in a certain amount of minutes. If it says 21 minutes you cannot finish it earlier. If the section is read and the questions answered and the "click for answers" is clicked on, I am told that I have to do the course in the minutes allotted and I have to go back and REDO the section. Then sometimes my computer shuts down and I have to redo the section. It is very frustrating. A friend from work got the same kind of ticket I got and after seeing the frustration in me, she took the class in person and they finished it in about 3 hours. She finished it before me and I got my ticket before she got hers. I have a 1/2 hour section to finish and I cannot read the section and answer the questions in less than the time allotted. I have to use the precise number of minutes told. That is why I would not take it on line again. Now this is in Nevada. I do not know how it is else where. Oh, It is good to know that I am not the only one that gets traffic tickets!!!!! Diana | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 1979 Registered: 12-2003  |
How funny, Diana! I remember once (rather long ago!) having a pan burn dry. It was so hot I took it outside, but on the way out I discovered the door was locked. I had to put the pan down in order to open the door. When I picked it up, there was a black, charred circle in the carpet where the pan had been sitting right beside the door. I solved my problem without telling the landlord by cutting a matching circle from the carpet in a back corner of the closet and replacing the burned area. Rather embarrassing, as I look back! I can almost smell that "chicken", Diana! Colleen | ||
| Foreverscout Registered user Username: Foreverscout Post Number: 39 Registered: 3-2005 |
Diana, Only tell me it was a SPEEDING ticket and we will totally connect! Only one ticket, but I didn't have enough money to take the class, it will soon be three years and hopefully my insurance rates will go down. I'm very good now, I don't get caught! ;o) I cook merely for survival, I can do it, I can even do it well, but only because someone has to. I can't even count the number of meals I have overcooked or pans I have burnt dry. For me, it's reading a book at the same time. So ya gotta wonder, why doesn't she learn after one or two meals/pots. I don't know, you keep thinking, it's gonna be different this time. I can pay attention, right? This is not hard. And then, I pick up the book, and... I'm gone... until... the smoke alarm screams! One time I put a hot pot in the sink and ran cold water into it. It made this weird "tink" noise and has never sat straight since, it rocks. Kinda like me, it's got a little ding in it. Oh well, as long as the Lord still loves me, so will I. Thank you Diana and everyone else for making me smile tonight. Foreverscout | ||
| Pw Registered user Username: Pw Post Number: 441 Registered: 6-2004 |
Diana...you not only burn chicken...you burn rubber. Life in the fast lane. | ||
| Dennis Registered user Username: Dennis Post Number: 390 Registered: 4-2000  |
Diana, My wife did a similar thing with great northern beans several years ago. In her case, she went to bed without thinking about the cooking beans on the stove. In the middle of the night, we were awakened with the odor and smoke. Badly burned beans have a very powerful smell. However, it required major kitchen renovation to eradicate the odor--including the dry cleaning of draperies, range hood replacement, etc. Oh well, we needed a new look in our kitchen anyway. Dennis J. Fischer | ||
| Pheeki Registered user Username: Pheeki Post Number: 577 Registered: 1-2003 |
I consider myself a pretty good cook but boy have I had some disasters too. I cook for a hobby and get all the magazines! One day, when my son had a friend staying with us, I decided I had better make them a meal...yes, teenagers can live on cheese quesadilla's every meal, but I wanted to provide this friend with a good meal...I didn't want him telling his mom that was all I fed them all week. So I go to the fridge, and lo and behold I had everything to make a recipe for a chicken casserole I had seen in one of my magazines. You layered chicken with crumbled bisquits and poured chicken broth over it...simple. Well it called for 6 cans of chicken broth, which, I thought was a lot...but I reasoned that bisquits soak up moisture so I kept pouring. Well, let me tell you, it was spilling over...however it soon absorbed it pretty well and I put it in the oven. 40 minutes later I look at it and it still looks like jello. I cooked it and cooked it and cooked it...finally I took it out and the top was a little done so I assumed it was ok. We spooned it up and it was like soggy bread. It was terrible. I was so embarassed! I ate it anyway, but made the boys quesadillas! Turns out it was 6 cups of broth, not cans! | ||
| Tdf Registered user Username: Tdf Post Number: 73 Registered: 11-2004 |
Diana, Back when we were Adventists, we were having a Friday night Bible study in our house. We were both working and so time was limited. My wife didn't have time to make potluck food during the week and so she decided to prepare a lasagna quickly and then put in the oven while we had our Bible study in the living room. It was her hope that she could be sly and that no one would know that she was cooking during the Sabbath hours (tells you alot about us doesn't it???). Well, we had a larger group than usual that night and a friend brought a co-worker with him. We were very focused on making the co-worker feel comfortable and we became wrapped up in the study (which went MUCH longer than normal). Needless to say, neither of us gave a second thought to the lasagna in the oven until the smoke alarms went off and smoke began to billow into the living room. Suffice it to say that our secret was out! I think that still ranks as one my wife's most embarassing moments (and I just shared it online for the world to read--wouldn't she love me for that). It's great to look back at that stuff and laugh. Diana, you are absolutely right that we can get too serious sometimes. Thanks for the laugh! tdf | ||
| Tisha Registered user Username: Tisha Post Number: 58 Registered: 3-2005 |
I love to cook also, and do pretty well at it most of the time. But - one Thanksgiving we were having all the family plus my daughter's fiance over for dinner. He was from Texas and so besides the pumpkin and apple pies, I made a pecan pie for him. I've made hundreds of them (we used to live in Georgia and pecans were cheap) without any problem, I could do it in my sleep. So I got all the ingredients together, including really nice (expensive) pecan halves. As I was taking it out of the oven I dropped it and it went all over the oven and everything else in there, on the floor and all over me! I was so disappointed to not have that pie for him. Plus that was the first time cooking for him and I wanted to be a "good" future M-I-L! The funny thing is that shortly after that my daughter called off the wedding, but it was NOT because of that pie! I've never made a pecan pie for her husband (she's now married, but to someone different), but maybe I'll get brave and try it again. But I'll have someone else take it from the oven! It's good to be able to laugh at ourselves. As they say "laughter is the best medicine". -tisha | ||
| Dd Registered user Username: Dd Post Number: 451 Registered: 7-2004 |
OK Diana, I have a smelly story that can top yours!!! My daughter had the cutest little hampster, Rudy was her name. She had a darling little personality. She was determined to live free. Despite twisty ties on the cage door, she could manage to hang from the bars above the little door, kick her back feet against the door (much like those action heros in the movies! ) and open the door just slight enough for her to squeeze through. One morning we woke to find an empty cage - no Ruby. After several days a looking and deciding she had been a cat appetizer, we began to smell an absolutely sickening odor. We noticed that it became completely unbearable when the furnace was running. We then knew the fate of Ruby - she had somehow gotten into the duct work and fallen to her death into the furnace. The worst part of the story is that all the heating repair shops were 6 weeks out on their appointments. I finally found someone in the next city (an hour away) to take pity. Still we lived 2 weeks without heat and a lingering aroma before we had help! It was not pretty. I bet those burnt beans, lasagna and Diana's chicken weren't so bad after all, huh guys?!! | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 1982 Registered: 12-2003 |
Oh, my goodness, Dd--I understand! What a mess! Speaking of rodents (uh--we were, weren't we?!), we had an infestation of--I hate to admit it--rats in our attic a few years ago. (We finally had to quit putting out bird feed; the rodents had put out the word that our yard was their local buffet.) At any rate, we had a similar sickening smell one day, and we noticed that whenever we sat in the living room with the recessed lighting on, it got worse. We finally realized we must have had a casualty from the packets of rodent poison we had tossed into the attic. Poor Richard--he put on his old printing coveralls and ventured into the dust and insulation. He did find a dead rat. It had apparently crawled into the light canister that extended above the ceiling into the attic, seeking warmth as it perished... But Dd, to have it be a pet--and TWO WEEKS without heat on top of that--yes, that is BAD! Colleen | ||
| Belvalew Registered user Username: Belvalew Post Number: 443 Registered: 7-2004 |
You guys have set my olfactories to twitching. Just when I think one of you has mentioned the ultimate noisome odor, someone else comes in and tops it! I, too, have had my share of smokey kitchen experiences (beans are particularly smelly when burned) but one of the most awful things I've ever experienced was a sweet potato. Yes, a sweet potato, when it rolls underneath a piece of furniture that hides the fact that it is there, and then rots in place, is AWFUL. It is almost as bad as decomposing rodent. Had both of them at the same time (I must sound like an awful housekeeper to you). My cat was crying at the patio door, or so I thought, actually she had herded a mouse up against the door and she was bragging to me about it. I opened the door, the mouse scampered in, I jumped back, the mouse ran under my dishwasher and disappeared. I prayed that it had found a hole in the floor under the dishwasher because I couldn't find it. A week later something started to reek, so my husband tore up half the tile over the dishwasher while pulling the dishwasher out. We found the mouse on top of the dishwasher where it had obviously been cooked by the heating element. Getting that dealt with helped a little, then the odor in the kitchen became oppressive again. This time I had to start pulling everything away from the walls--refrigerator, storage cabinets--everything. That's how I found the sweet potato, completely turned to mush and turning grey-green. It is surviving times like that that help us all appreciate the fresh air that usually flows through our homes. Belva | ||
| Tisha Registered user Username: Tisha Post Number: 61 Registered: 3-2005 |
We had an awful odor that seemed to be coming from the laundry room. We searched and searched. It would get especially bad when the dryer was running. We tore the dryer apart and cleaned everything we could get at, but to no avail. We went down into the crawl space but couldn't find anything there either. We couldn't use the dryer because the smell was so bad, and it made all our close smell bad, too. We just had to tuff it out and eventually it went away. We never did find the culprit! I can't use that green bait for mice because they just take it and stuff it into my linens, vaccuum cleaner hose, shoes and anywhere else they can find. It only takes them one night to empty a commercial size box. We keep six traps set at all times and I check them morning and night. Spring and Fall seem to be the worst times. We live with woods all around us so they come in to find a warm and cosy place to have babies and for winter. Our cat just doesn't seem interested in catching them. I think they must play together at night! I think the coyote population is being crowded out by all the development in the area. We are seeing more mice, squirrels, rabbits, mountain beavers, etc. than before. I think that there aren't enough coyotes to keep them under control anymore. We're getting ready to call in an exterminator for the mountain beavers. I just hate to do that, but they are undermining our yard, road, orchard and pasture so that it isn't safe to walk or even drive the tractor! The ground just gives way into all their burrows and dens. It's really bad this year. Oh the joys of country living! We have so many critter stories I could tell. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. -tisha | ||
| Carol_2 Registered user Username: Carol_2 Post Number: 323 Registered: 2-2002  |
OK, since we're talking about bad smells, I have to share the following e-mail I received......I apologize in advance if I offend anyone. CURTAIN RODS She spent the first day packing her belongings into boxes, crates and suitcases. On the second day, she had the movers come and collect her things. On the third day, she sat down for the last time at their beautiful dining room table by candlelight, put on some soft background music, and feasted on a pound of shrimp, a jar of caviar, and a bottle of Chardonnay. When she had finished, she went into each and every room and deposited a few half-eaten shrimp shells dipped in caviar, into the hollow of the curtain rods. She then cleaned up the kitchen and left. When the husband returned with his new girlfriend, all was bliss for the first few days. Then slowly, the house began to smell. They tried everything, cleaning, mopping, and airing the place out. Vents were checked for dead rodents, and carpets were steam cleaned. Air fresheners were hung everywhere. Exterminators were brought in to set off gas canisters, during which they had to move out for a few days, and in the end they even paid to replace the expensive wool carpeting. Nothing worked. People stopped coming over to visit. Repairmen refused to work in the house. The maid quit. Finally, they could not take the stench any longer and decided to move. A month later, even though they had cut their price in half, they could not find a buyer for their stinky house. Word got out, and eventually, even the local realtors refused to return their calls. Finally, they had to borrow a huge sum of money from the bank to purchase a new place. The ex-wife called the man, and asked how things were going. He told her the saga of the rotting house. She listened politely, and said that she missed her old home terribly, and would be willing to reduce her divorce settlement in exchange for getting the house back. Knowing his ex-wife had no idea how bad the smell was, he agreed on a price that was about 1/10th of what the house had been worth, but only if she were to sign the papers that very day. She agreed, and within the hour his lawyers delivered the paperwork. A week later the man and his girlfriend stood smiling as they watched the moving company pack everything to take to their new home...including the curtain rods. | ||
| Bob Registered user Username: Bob Post Number: 252 Registered: 7-2000  |
Carol_2, I loved the story! Bob |
