The Misadventures Part: Top 5 Kitchen Mishaps

I write about a lot of fabulous things on this blog...how to do breakfast in Aruba, feasting on first-class sushi during Restaurant Week, making decadent cakes and cupcakes...but what I neglect to mention most of the time are the mishaps that go on during my culinary endeavors...forcing me to rethink the whole 'in the kitchen' thing and relegate myself to this at all times:

Sushi Lounge in Hoboken, Spring 2009

Not too shabby. But, I love to cook. Do I know a whole lot about it? Nope. But I like to pretend like I do and try to pick up a few tricks along the way. So, in the spirit of inspiring others like myself (that whole if I can do it, you can do it too thing), I'm listing my top five kitchen mishaps (or as Shaun said when I told him about the article, "you mean top five of the last three days?") ...yeah.

1. Slicing my middle finger on a can of dog food. My refusal to use an electric can opener at my parent's house (I'm in the Alton Brown school of thought to not keep excessive gadgets on hand. This goes against all my mother stands for, as she has every kitchen gadget you could possibly think of) lead to this dastardly finger wound and one that I hope never rears it's ugly head again. Putting my middle finger out of commission not only lead to extreme bandaging and underuse, but the constant feeling that I was giving people the unholiest of finger gestures. 

2. Opening a pull can and splattering chipotle pepper sauce all over the wall. Yup it was this past weekend as I made a slow cooker full of black bean soup and it's exactly as it sounds. Did I mention that Shaun had just given this very wall a good scrubbing following my last splatter incident?

3. Burning my thumb on a hot stove grate. Shaun had just used the grate in heating the tea kettle. Rachel thinks she's so smart and getting ahead of the game by cleaning the entire kitchen as things are used (what can I say? Random bits of food just jump out of pans and under the grate). One swift move to lift the grate and I'm left with a skinless thumb.

4. Inadvertently pouring half a can of tomato sauce on my shirt. As I opened the can and pushed up the lid (this was pre-finger slicing as mentioned in number 1 when I carelessly opened cans using bare fingers at any whim), the lid flicked a huge droplet-turned-saucy stain on my fancy shirt. This did, however, lead to my purchasing of a truly fab Anthropologie apron, which ultimately became the color inspiration for my new blog.

5. Sharp knife sticking out of dishwasher decides to slice my palm. I reach into the lower half of the dishwasher, and out of nowhere, a knife sticking out of the utensil basket just does its thing on my hand. Though not enough to warrant a full hand bandage, I have to tell you candidly...it did not feel good.

So it's not all fun in the Humiston kitchen, though even despite my many recent mishaps and Shaun's teasing of said wounds, it still hasn't deterred my desire to learn the culinary arts. And I guess after looking at the above, you'd think I be more interested in reviewing restaurants than cooking food myself, but I guess that's part of the fun - learning as you go along, just like anything else in life. Just make sure you have plenty of bandages, first aid cream, and ibuprofen on hand as a quick cure kit to many kitchen mishaps. Oh, and probably a fire extinguisher, though luckily none of my missteps have warranted this...yet.

But what about you? Am I the only one who's had kitchen malfunctions, causing bodily harm? Please tell me that I'm not alone in my culinary misadventures. Have you ever had a major, yet kinda funny in hindsight, mishap in the kitchen?