Cooking is hard, or it’s not. It’s also dangerous, or it isn’t. Really, depending on how competent you are in the kitchen, cooking can be a life-threatening, nearly impossible task, or it can be as soothing as drifting down a lazy river of pancake batter whilst serenaded by James Earl Jones. In my culinary ventures I have injured myself in ways I feel like I could have avoided had I been the type of person to listen to common sense. I’m here to tell you how not to be as foolish as me. Here are a few things you shouldn’t do while cooking.
Misread Labels
This can be as simple as knowing which side of the pepper shaker to open: the dainty sprinkler which pecks your food with perfectly portioned black dots, or the zesty hell-storm that consumes you and the only food in your home. I misread the little symbols on the lid of my pepper shaker, and such a wave of black and gray has not been seen since the great Sharpie flood of ‘06. The pepper covered the only food I had: a single egg already frying away in the pan I didn’t want to go to the store. It was just one egg. I could have just skipped a meal. Instead, I blew on the mound of pepper while the egg was still bubbling. What you and I are experiencing right now is called dramatic irony; that’s when the audience knows something the character in the story does not. I know now that blowing on a pile of rapidly heating pepper is a bad idea, and I know that because my eyes are still watering and flecks of black still drift across my field of vision. Don’t misread labels. Don’t blow on piles of hot pepper.
Cook Nude
Just don’t. Do you know how many of your jiggly person-bits are fragile and rarely exposed to damage? Probably most of them unless you lead a way more intense life than me. I wasn’t even nude when I learned irrevocably that this is a lesson not to be broken. I had my shirt off because I live in the Southwest and the sun was a comfortable 10 inches from my window. I was also cooking bacon. It was when I flipped the first crinkled morsel of filleted pig flesh that I was struck by either a solar flare or a sizzling globule of bacon grease. Anyway, my chest looked like a constellation for a while, and now I wear a lead apron and a welding hood when I cook breakfast.
Release Live Animals
I have a cat. I like petting my cat. Sometimes I even get to hold her. I also am a huge idiot. I let my little furry buddy hop onto the table where I prepare food which is a mistake obvious to everyone except me yesterday. In summary, cats like knocking things off tables, and it’s easier to throw a rug away than scrub out a gallon of pancake batter.
Watch Engaging Shows
Breaking Bad is an incredible series. Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul are fantastic artists, and season 5 is a masterpiece. The series finale was particularly engaging, and I know that because I didn’t notice the smoke from my oven until the chicken inside resembled its Jurassic relatives post-meteor.
Touch Your Eyes
Listen, if there’s any lesson you take from me or this blog, then let it be this one. You could be making ice cream out of hugs and pictures of water, and I’d still say wash your hands before you touch your face. I learned my lesson after making salsa. I like spicy foods so I made a salsa out of a portion of a habanero pepper, serrano peppers, and a few jalapenos among other ingredients (ha, like I’d reveal every detail to my world famous super spicy salsa recipe). It was after I had finished blending my delicious liquid fire that I absentmindedly wiped my nose. Immediately, my sinuses were clear as a torrent of flame ripped through my face. My eyes watered, and muscle memory fucked me. I wiped my eyes. The burning was slow at first and kind of like actually eating spicy food. Then I it felt like someone was pouring hot sand straight into my retinas, and I was blind. I stumbled around my apartment screaming, blindly fumbled at the oven until I turned all the burners off, then stumbled to my shower, turned it on, and stepped in fully clothed. I pried my eyes open and stared into the water, treating it like a giant chemical eye-wash station. I screamed some more–imagine being shot by a million bb’s fired by a child you hate. The whole ordeal lasted about 45 minutes. My eyes watered with almost no provocation for the rest of the week. I think I might need glasses now. The salsa was delicious. Wear gloves.
Years ago I had a friend who had a similar pepper story, only it involved a urinal and enough tears to fill the Dead Sea.
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Oh, oh no. That’s definitely worse. I feel like if I keep cooking, I’ll need glasses, but there’s no real fixing your friend’s brand of trauma.
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Haha! And I thought I was terrible in the kitchen… But as long as you didn’t burn the whole place down, I think your cooking was a success each time. (I never mentioned anything about the photos you pick and the captions, but they’re just as epic as the stories; in fact, they add just about the right amount of spice your content needs).
Arizona, wow. We couldn’t have been farther from one another.
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I’ve since gotten a little better at cooking, but I have scars from my many mistakes.
Thank you! The photos are some of my favorite parts to do.
Oh? Where does that put you if Arizona is so far?
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Scars are good, they show you lived your life to the fullest.
I know for sure you write the captions, but do you also edit the photos?
I’m from Europe actually, Romania to be more specific. It’s that little place on the map that no one gives a shit about (myself included).
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I wish I did edit the pictures but I’m not so talented as that. I find them all on a free stock photo site.
Oh cool! That does put you about as far as humanly possible unfortunately. I’m sure at least one person gives a shit about Romania
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Unfortunately so, yes. When I first started reading your blog, I thought you were from the UK, for some reason. Anyway, what were the odds for us to be if not from the same state, at least the same continent?
I just realized I know so many (personal) things about you, but I have no idea what your name is.
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I think I can take that as a compliment. Some of my favorite humor is from writers out of the UK.
Nice to meet you too! I think you’re one of the first people I’ve really met from doing this. I don’t know if it comes through in my writing, but I’m not much of a social butterfly.
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Haha, I figured. You may not be a social butterfly, but I know you have bees in your yard (I don’t know why I made that connection).
You’re one of the first people whose blog I keep coming back to. Must be the crazy laughs I get from reading your posts. I regret nothing.
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Ha I can see the connection there. I’m flattered that you like my stuff. I tend to dislike anything I’ve written after a few hours have gone by
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So a few hours from now you will dislike this comment of yours as well.
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Oh definitely
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Based on the map that shows where people view your blog from, you might be the only person in all of Romania to have seen my blog. That’s amazing
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🙂 I know for sure people here have blogs as well, but the bloggers community is much larger in the US.
I’m thinking I’m also the first person from Romania you’ve interacted with.
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The community here seems big, but I’ve never actually spoken to another person about it. Sometimes I just see people writing in public and I feel like a weird stalker.
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Haha. But you write your posts in public as well, right? A library, if I remember correctly.
If you feel like a weird stalker, imagine how I’m feeling whenever I come back to read one of your posts…
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That’s true. Maybe I’m inviting stalking by being out in public. Tine to go even deeper into hiding.
Ha! I definitely don’t think of you as anything like a stalker
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Any thoughts on how you’re going to do that?
And I hope you think of me as an avid reader of your weird but deliciously humorous posts.
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Hmmmm… I might have to start writing from an actual cave. Though getting internet installed there may prove difficult.
I don’t know if anyone has ever called my writing delicious. I’m strangely flattered.
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Haha. And then you could change your blog name into “Caveman with an internet connection – mostly adequate”.
Why strangely? I said “delicious” because I’m really tasting your sarcasm-flavored humor.
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“Caveman certainly has some appeal. Ha I think I’m just bad at taking compliments
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Who said they were compliments?
Maybe they’re the mere observations of a reader going through your stuff (that sounded like violating your privacy – oh, well).
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Ha! It’s not so private if I voluntarily put it on the internet, the least private place ever made. Hmm… thank you for the observations then
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You’re welcome 🙂 (they were compliments)
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