Kitchen Katastrophe, or the Perils of Povey.


It all began when I bought some pork loin (bone in) at my local supermarket. It weighed nearly 4lbs, and was offered at a reduced price of just about $4. That couldn’t be resisted.

Then as I wandered through the produce section my eyes alighted on an array of cauliflowers. Since I hadn’t eaten cauliflower in a couple of decades (I think that it’s a bit bland), I decided to try this venerable vegetable once again. (Cauliflower with cheese sprang to mind).

I set out to cook the pork and make some cauliflower with cheese for yersterday’s lunch. I put the pork with cut up sweet potato and mushrooms in one of those oven roasting bags, placed it in a blue pyrex baking dish, and set it on its merry way in a 350f pre-heated oven.

After about 75 minutes I decided to cook the cauliflower and make the cheese sauce.  This being done, some 15 minutes later I opened the oven and saw that that pork etc looked good, and could be taken out of the oven to cool whilst the cauliflower and cheese got cooked.

With the pork out of the oven and the cauliflower in the oven I set about washing some pots and pans and other cooking implements.

Then it hit.  “Ker-pow” and the baking dish shattered into hundreds of pieces which scattered themselves in many directions (including some bits which landed 21’ away in the dining room).

“Ker-pow”  -  why?  Well of course I had placed the baking dish on the stove top, not noticing that one of the heating coils was still “on”.  I engaged in some un-godly and self reproaching language.

Then I began to sweep up the myriads of small bits of blue glass (having at least had the wisdom to put some slippers on my feet before doing so).  The oven top was a mess, but I decided to take care of that later.

Amazingly  I was able to rescue the meat and veggies, saved as they were by the oven roasting bag.

So I ate my lunch before launching into a deep clean of the oven top. ‘Twas then I noticed that my left foot had been cut before I put on the slippers.  So there was a fair bit of dried blood on some parts of my tiled floors.

I have spent a wee bit of my ordained ministry worrying about older folks who might forget to turn off oven burners.  Now I am one of them.

Six thoughts this morning:

1.    Pay attention.

2.   It could have been worse.  My back was to the oven since I was washing pots and pans when the dish shattered. Had I been facing the other way I could have gotten some shards of glass in my face.

3.   I will be finding bits of blue glass for months to come. Somehow broken glass has a habit of hiding itself away, and emerging some time later.

4.   Pay attention.

5.   Even cauliflower with cheese is a bit bland.
6. I must remove most of  the "stuff" on my very limited counter space to make room for "fresh from the oven" food.
 

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