As a joke some friends got me a cut resistant glove for my birthday (I nearly sliced off a good chunk of the knuckle of my left thumb). They also had purchased a silicone oven mitt for me for Christmas.
Well, while I was preparing our early supper (late lunch?) I had placed a small pot of water in the oven (to help develop the crust of the baking bread). I had taken it out and left it on the stove.
I set the bread to cool and was getting ready to prepare some steaks. In order to do that I needed to do something with the pan of hot water on the stovetop. Did I mention that it was in a 450 degree Fahrenheit oven just a few short minutes ago?
Needless to write I become quite aware how hot is was. Thank goodness the tap water was hand numbingly cold. I was worried that it would be a second degree burn. As it turns out, about 8 hours later, it should only be a very painful first degree burn.
The irony here is that I take a lot of pride in my cooking (and my technique) and in the span of about 6 months:
- put a deep cut in the knuckle of my left thumb
- did a good job of grating the knuckle of my right thumb (guess I needed a matched set)
- tried to burn the palm of my right hand
At least I'm not repeating my mistakes.
This was years ago, but it was sufficiently deep that a thick, obvious scar lays across the middle fingerprint, and two less obvious ones match the arc if I curl my fingers properly. It's really quite embarrassing, considering that I can't explain why I was cutting Tootsie Rolls with razors in the first place.
Is Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. According to him, professional cooks take pride in all their "war wounds".
It's a pretty good book overall: pretty funny in places, although it may make you think twice about eating in restaurants.
I keep all my knives razorsharp, so the cuts are nice and clean and heal quickly. The worst was one day when my hand slipped while useing the 'mandolin': a nice row of gashes with 3.5 mm separation over back of 4 fingers, between 2nd and 3rd knucles - ouch.
Just as only nonproductive programmers don't make mistakes, only non-chefs dont get cut or burnt - but it still hurts though.
Re:It's a bad week
gizmo_mathboy on 2004-02-10T13:23:19
Ouch! I thought grating my thumb would hurt. I couldn't imagine what running my hand over a mandolin would do.
I would hate to think how many cuts I would get if I was a line cook. Then again my technique and speed would improve or I would start losing fingers.:-)
