Cupboard space is at an absolute premium in my urban San Diego kitchen.
So when I went to “push” a bag of sugar back into the cupboard, it “pushed out” a jar of caramel sauce.
It was one of those in slow motion moments.
And it just went splat and shattered when it hit the travertine floor.
The first words out of my mouth were, “Oh Fu*k!” “Oh Fudge!” . And I don’t mean vegan fudge.
Nothing quite like cleaning sticky caramel sauce with shards of glass embedded in it off the floor. And then hauling out the broom, dustpan, mop, and vacuum and cleaning the floors 17 times just to make sure I got all teeny tiny glass shards cleaned up.
Because I swear, this glass was like dust.
Just beautiful, dusty, razor shards. Everywhere. Countertops, the floor, it just multiplied.
I uttered many choice words during the hour long cleanup session. Just what I had planned on during my busy day, of course.
In the end, I was not as upset that I wasted a perfectly good hour. I was not upset that I had to clean sticky, gooey, runny caramel with glass shards embedded in it and use an entire roll of paper towels in the process.
No, I was quite ticked that a perfectly great jar of caramel sauce was wasted! Good thing TJ’s and the grocery store is my second home and I can pick up another jar soon.
You may want to know that I was putting away the sugar because I was making a Microwave Blueberry Banana Oat Cake
An hour later, I finally got my oat cake.
From my last post about Quitting the Gym, I am so glad the post resonated with so many of you. Thanks for the awesome comments! Some of you really derive benefit from your gym memberships and that’s great.
For others, not so much. It was refreshing to hear just how many of you have also quit going to the gym, or would like to quit your gym membership and do other things like walks or runs outdoors, or yoga.
And for me, it was time to move on from the gym and get my workouts accomplished other ways. And in much more efficient ways. Life changes, our needs and desires change, and it’s important to stay flexible and roll with the punches of life. I’d rather do yoga at home than lift and grunt in the gym these days.
Questions:
1. Do you swear?
Yes, I have a potty mouth and although I try not to write swear words on my blog, in real life, yes, I do swear. Good thing I was the only one home while dealing with broken glass, sticky caramel sauce, and a few F-bombs dropped.
2. Have you ever had a kitchen disaster? Any spills, breaks, cracks, leaks, dropping things, burning things, fires, etc?
I have had plenty.
Setting off the smoke detector by accidentally burning tofu in the oven that I swear went from raw to charred in the span of 4 minutes. My house stunk like burnt food (carbony/charcoaley) + decomposing soybeans (tofu) for days. It was nasty.
Thankfully the Mango Ginger Maple Tofu turned out, in the end.
Then there was the time last summer when I had a gallon of hot, sugared, brewed tea in a glass jar waiting to cool off because I make my own komboucha at home.
Well, the jar cracked and a gallon of hot, sugary tea went all over my countertops, into 5 kitchen drawers with utensils, silverware, pots and pans, dish towels, you name it. Pretty much every single gadget, utensil and daily-use items in 5 very full kitchen drawers were soaked in sugary tea. Not to mention it was all over the floors.
The immediate cleanup took about 3 hours, but for months later, I was finding sweet tea droplets on handles of spatulas and on the sides of drawers. It was a nightmare! Since then, I only use tempered glass. I know Jessica has even had exploding Pyrex all over her oven so glass isn’t foolproof.
And then there was the time I almost burnt Roasted Coconut & Ginger Peanut Butter Carrots
Nothing quite like the smell of charred peanut butter. Good thing I caught these just in time and that Scott likes well-done food.What are some of your kitchen disasters?
Swearing…. yes. I actually swear a lot. Have the time I don’t even know I am saying it.
PS – Just wanted to let you know I am still such a huge fan! I always come to your blog to get recipe ideas :) Love ya!
aw darn! No use crying over spilled caramel sauce ;)
Best thing to clean up those tiny bits of glass is BREAD! The glass just gets stuck in it and you just throw everything away no mess. Little trick learned waitressing =)
i definitely have a potty mouth… depending who i’m being compared to…. i work in the bar industry and have for years, so…. its kinda unavoidable somehow… part of the environment and totally therapeutic at times :)
Oh no!!!! The caramel!!!!!!!!!!
I can have a potty mouth in certain settings … but I am very selective about it.
There’s nothing quite like a kitchen disaster, is there? Some of mine. . .
I had a kombucha spill once in my bag. Actually prob more than once. Thank gawd my electronics were unscathed. Like you, I was annoyed by the cleanup, but perhaps even more annoying by the ‘booch “lost.”
One Thanksgiving we put the turkey on a beautifully decorated glass platter, only to have the heat of the turkey break the platter.
There have been burned rolls aplenty. Then there was the time my friend who never cooked was trying to learn, and placed a glass bowl full of Velveeta cheese ON THE STOVE, over an electric burner, to melt it. OMG, the explosion and mess were epic. The lesson learned was epic as well.
I’ve also had green smoothies spill out of the bottom of the cheapo blenders I used to use. Many F-bombs ensued, but it motivated me to finally break down and buy my Vita. Zero regrets.
Regarding cursing: I def curse. It’s practically a requirement if you’re gonna call NYC home ;-)
“You smile like a saint, but you curse like a sailor.” <- really old Dashboard Confessional lyrics.. but I always liked em. I swear A LOT. And I don't give a fuuuu(censored). :)
oh man! so sorry about the breaking jar. Esp with caramel. Not an easy clean up for sure. Ive had so many kitchen disasters..one of the most memorable was an exploding egg in the microwave..Not a good experiment on my part. And do I swear? You bet you a$$ I do! ha! Its a bad habit..but oh well=) At least I can contain myself when I have to. (Driving in hellish traffic is another story…..) have a great day!
I don’t swear… well, I do not use conventional swear words. I guess I kind of have my own. “Mud” being one of them. None of them make any sense though.
I do not typically burn food. I do typically overcook everything by about 30 seconds. I do however burn myself a lot. I get moving too quickly in the kitchen and do something stupid like grab a pan or rub my arm against a hot pan. I currently have 3 healing burns.
I makes me angry when I am clumsy and have to clean something up. I dropped a glass pepper grinder the other day and spent ten minutes chasing down roly poly peppercorns. I can’t tell you how many times I have dropped makeup powder… a mess. The kombucha sounds like an awful one though.
Nooo!
I swear A LOT in my head. When it DOES come out of my mouth, people are surprised. But I consider myself a sailor.
I was a late bloomer though. In first grade I came home and told my dad I’d learned the F word. He asked me what I’d heard and I said “Fart!”.
No lie, last month I set our apartment kitchen on fire.
Oh man, sugary tea everywhere? That is a nightmare.
My old apartment had almost no counterspace, so one time my toaster kinda got shoved onto the range burners and then I accidently bumped the stove and turned on said burners…basically, the cord, which was still plugged into the wall, melted and my poor toaster blew up. Kaboom. Fireworks show right in my kitchen.
i’ve perpetuated and seen some huge disasters in kitchens i’ve worked in
Hi Averie – was it glass or the sea salt (fleur de sel)? Either way…bummmmmr!
The first thing I said when I saw that picture was “Oh no! Not the grout!!” I seriously said it out loud. I HATE cleaning grout. It’s such a pain. My major travesty is dropping knives on the kitchen floor. It’d be all fine and dandy if I had a tile floor like yours, but I didn’t want to clean the grout, so we opted for hardwood. Yaaa…. there are knife marks everywhere.
I’ll have to read your post about quitting the gym, I guess I missed that one!