How Not To Cook Pizza

I've been sitting here this evening working away and I've just noticed I feel quite tired. I'm normally a bit of a night-owl so 01:00 is a fairly early for me to have heavy eyelids.

I've just worked out why, and it's because of a sequence of seemingly unrelated facts...

• I'd made some muffins for breakfast at the weekend with some cheap sausages that gave off a lot of fat and I haven't cleaned the grill pan yet.


• The bedroom I use for an office is directly above my kitchen, but the stairs are in the opposite corner of the house, making me 2 hypotenuses and 1 storey away from the kitchen.


• I bought a pizza for tea tonight as I was feeling a bit lazy, and in my haste to scoff it I didn't turn the oven off. I *did*, however turn the grill on instead without realising.

The result: my grill has been happily turning the fat from the sausages to a very thin smoke for the last 5 hours and I didn't notice. My eyes did, however, and they want to close now.

And that is how not to cook pizza.

Locked Out

I was was reading the following article earlier and it reminded me of a similar incident I had a while ago:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/12/2

A good few years ago I was renting a room from a couple of friends who had bought a house together. The house had a very small porch at the front, about a metre or so square, and glazed all round like a miniature conservatory. The outside door had a deadlock on it. (All of these facts will become important shortly).

I'm a late riser so I was always the last to leave for work, and on one occasion I happened to forget my keys. I realised this at the *exact* moment I closed the inside door and heard the little click as the deadlatch engaged. Another moment later I also realised that someone had deadlock the outside door, leaving me trapped in a glassy cell.

Luckily I had my mobile phone with my, but it meant one of my housemates had to travel back home from work to release me, and I had to wait there with no comfortable way of sitting down for a couple of hours until they'd finished a meeting. A woman walking past with a dog came over to try and help at one point, but after I explained what had happened she just laughed and walked off (not that there was much she could do anyway).

I make a point of holding my keys in my hand when I leave the house now, and I've not locked myself out since.

Update: I managed to do this to a friend staying at mine earlier this year as well - I forgot he was there and deadlocked the outside door on my way out. Luckily he was able to clamber out of a top-opening window.

How Not to Visit an Art Gallery

I was supposed to meet a friend tonight who has returned from the Cayman Islands for a couple of weeks. As part of the occasion we were going to visit her brother's girlfriend's handbag stall (http://www.carmenwoods.com) at a professional designers' weekend.

Only I misread the map and ended up at an art gallery that was raising funds in aid of a tribe of Malaysian "sea gypsies" who are under threat from the more land-based lifestyles. It was next door to the proper venue, so Google Maps didn't really seem to know the difference. And nor did I.

I spent a good hour there wandering round, pretending I belonged there in my suit, surrounded by floppy haired, baggy clothed artistes, until I finally got summoned to the right building by a "Where the hell are you?" phone call.

And that is how not to visit an art gallery...

How Not to Seal a Wok

Whenever I try to be clever I normally end up doing something dumb instead. Last night was no exception.

I haven't done a stir fry for a while so my wok was a little dry and I figured I'd heat a bit of oil in it to revitalise it first. Being 'clever', I also decided to put a lid on it since the oil would heat faster and smoke less.

Half way through the washing up I heard this "whoompf" followed by a god-awful clattering, and spun around to find the oil had reached its flash-point, caught fire and blown the wok lid halfway across the kitchen.

Luckily there was only a bit of oil left so I took the fiery hemisphere out to the garden while I worked out what to do with it.

Then I remembered wet towels, so I soaked a tea-towel and tried to cover the wok, but sort of mis-threw it and it landed in a ball smack bang in the oil, which then exploded in a big fireball.

Luckily that took the wind out of its sails and I was able to put the rest of the flames out. The wok is now beautifully sealed, and my teatowel is now burnt to a crisp.

And that is how not to seal a wok...

Microwave Mishap

I was trying to soften up some butter earlier in the microwave and it seems the high-tech plastic wrapping they use still actually contains some traces of metal. I can speak with some certainty here as I watched the spectacular light show it put on, and pulled out the charred smoking remains of the wrapper once I'd managed to turn the power off.

And just after that I managed to burn myself with some sugar I was melting. I'm not doing very well at the moment.

Real World 2, Pointy 0

Me and DIY Don't See Eye-to-Eye

I seem to have this curse with the physical world, or at least some sort of reverse Midas touch. Anything manual or mechanical I touch seems to break without me even trying.

So, I was quite pleased with myself after spending about 6 hours today sanding and glossing the window frames in my conservatory, having spent about 8 hours last weekend sanding and undercoating.

That was, until just now when I went out there to inspect my handiwork. From a distance I noticed it didn't really have the sheen I was expecting, and as I got closer a curious thought crossed my mind.

"Why has that gloss dried looking like undercoat?"

The answer is, of course, that I've only accidentally gone and put a second coat of undercoat on instead of gloss.

Grrrrr...

Ouch

New personal rules when cooking at home:

1) When chopping food in a hurry, don't stab the end of your finger with the knife. It hurts.

2) Especially not if you're chopping chillies. It hurts and then it stings.

3) Oh, and don't then put your finger in your mouth to try and make it feel better. You were handling chillies, remember.

I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about what I did earlier.