The Kareful Kitchen

It's time to take a break from recipes to talk about a couple of hazards lurking for the unsuspecting single man  in the kitchen.

First of all, there is a biological difference between men and women that make the male particularly handicapped when it comes to cooking: Men can only do one thing at a time.

Women can cook (several dishes at once) while talking on the telephone and watching television.  Men can do all of these things, but only one at a time.  This is a problem when it comes to monitoring your meal as it cooks.

Guys tend to put something in the oven and then turn on the television.  Once they start to focus on whatever is on the TV, the meal is out of their mind until the smoke alarm notifies them that their baked potato is on fire.

A smoke alarm should only be used as a timer for you most robust meals.  Or, if its raining outside and you need to bring your BBQ inside to cook. When that happens and the smoke alarm goes off, its probably time to flip your burgers.

I once screwed up a two-step meal by adding a third step.  I was cooking Lentils.  This is basically Step 1:  Heat Lentils in a pot of boiling water and Step 2: After 45 minutes - eat.  Between these two steps, I added "play golf for 6 hours."  I started the lentils and then someone called and wanted to play golf.  The lentils were our of my head until I came home and they chemically fused to the metal in the pot.

So, get a timer.  No timer = burned food.  A timer will eliminate the number one problem men face in the kitchen.

The second problem is dirty dishes.

We tend to let the dishes pile up until either (a) the sink is over filled or (b) we are out of bowls.  There is nothing wrong with this.  In fact, it's just good time management.

However, there are a couple of things that need to be washed right away.  The following will permenantly bond to any plate if left for more than just a few minutes: egg yoke, Catsup, oat meal anything made with flour (like pasta).  The easiest solution is to simply keep the sink filled with water.  In this way, you can let the dishes stack up and still keep the food from drying on them.

The last thing is the refrigerator.  Most stuff that you eat has a "shelf life."  This is the amount of time you can keep something before it goes bad.  The expiration date is usually put on the package somewhere.  I tend to treat these as rough guild lines.  However, it it's a dairy product and the expiration date has been reached, toss it.  Otherwise, the smell will quickly become overwhelming.

My rule of thumb is to do a sweep through the fridge about once a month looking for things that are turning green.

Well, that covers just about anything that can go wrong in the kitchen.  Happy Cooking!!

Jim