Whistlin’ t’ Hell inna Han’baskit
Grok grok. Wha’ good iza whistlin’ teakettle if a ol’ growler terns it on ‘n’ then goes ou’side where ‘e can’t hear th’ dern thing? Grok grok. Werya tryin’ t’ bern down th’ ol’ lan’fill w’ me ‘n’ Smokie ‘n’ Clammy ‘n’ all o’ us inside? Grok grok.
November 5th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
Hahahaha! Brings to memory the incident one “Funk & Wagnall’s” night at The Library (bar, not books) in Houghton!
Left one roomie at home (she claimed to have homework) and the rest of us left Summit Street to go listen to F&W (Jimbo was T-bone for that combo). As usual, gone for a couple-a hours.
Got home, place stank to high heaven – almost acrid, kind of bitter smelling. Couldn’t figure out what the smell could be…
..until said stay-at-home roomie admitted to having turned on the (whistling) teakettle, then made (or took?) a phone call from a long-ex-boyfriend (upon whom she still had a crush) and yakked for ages…
…long enough for not only the teakettle to shriek, but continue shrieking until all the water disappeared..
…long enough for the teakettle to melt into a tiny little ball of aluminum at the bottom of the burner pan…
…hence, the odor we could not figure out.
And this was the year AFTER we (yes, the roomie who neglected the teakettle and I) had lived over Nutini’s (restaurant) when that restaurant BURNED.
November 5th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
When I started reading that comment, I was thinking, “what about the time you lived over that restaurant that burned.” Of course, I just had to keep reading. You should tell that story on your blahg. 🙂
We’ve had a few burning pan/teakettle incidents in our marriage. Usually not me. Never got as far as a little ball of aluminum. But then, I don’t think I’ve ever had aluminum pans. Couldn’t stand ’em back in the student days and bought revere ware instead. Stainless steel? I think (?) They can get ugly and warped if left to boil dry though.
And, a bit off-topic, but, as the Indian guy (east Indian, not wild Indian) who tried to take a deposit to National City the same time as I did on Friday after the Golden Chef restaurant fire, said, “Restaurants burn a lot around here, don’t they.” I figgered he meant “here” as in “The Golden Country” and I just shook my head and said, “yes.” I wonder if he was thinking the same thing as I was…
November 5th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
and you were thinking:
>> arson? i.e., business was losing money, hence the “let’s see if we can get insurance to pay off all those debts” strategy?
>> bad maintenance? i.e., failure to get the grill chimney/vent cleaned regularly, so you get a really nice chimney fire, which then starts the roof ablaze, and it just goes on from there? (gee, it happened to The Crossbow when we were eating there once – but they got that extinguished ASAP – and we continued eating…then it happened recently to the Big Boy – gee, just as they were planning to remodel ANYway- so, they just closed it down for several months and simultaneously performed cleanup, repair, and remodel – how convenient!).
>> sheer carelessness? i.e., “forgot” to turn off a warming lamp, setting some flammable material nearby ablaze, and it just goes on from there? (this was the scenario for the Nutini’s fire).
or, what??
November 5th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
Funnily enough, the restaurant story was the first thing I thought of when reading this, too!
November 6th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
I’ve melted aluminum into a little Hershey’s Kiss shape on a camping stove. It was on our big bike trip, and I was tired of scorching the oatmeal every time. Aha! I thought, I’ll stack two of the flimsy aluminum pans together. But, when I used the pot grabber, it only grabbed the top pan. When I turned back, the bottom, empty pan had a cherry red center, which then melted into the kiss shape as I tried to pull it off.
I’ve also set popcorn oil and the tester kernels on fire twice — I think Anne Bananne was present at one of the times, in our MSU apt. Both times I was using a Revere Ware pan, and both times there was snow outside on the balcony, so I just took the whole pan w/ lid outside and plopped it in the snow. Then I found out that a thick-gauge aluminum pan was much better for popcorn than the Revere Ware.
I think the babysitter tried making popcorn in the same Revere Ware pan once, but “forgot” to tell us about it. I took the pan off the rack, and turned it over and it was burned black on the inside. I showed it to Mark and commented that his dishwashing needed improvement. He said he’d never seen the pan in that state. After a minute’s thought, I remembered that we’d had a babysitter the week before. After that, I made sure to get microwave popcorn, or set out the good aluminum pan when we had a babysitter.
BTW, should you scorch a pan, pour some vinegar in the bottom, bring it to a simmer for a few minutes, then let it cool. It makes it easier to scrub. And of course, if you add some baking soda to it, it will bubble excitedly and give you a little extra scrubbing power – or just amusement. The vinegar also works in coffee pots that were allowed to boil dry – usually this happens at the office – where it’s always “somebody’s” job, so nobody does it!