Devoted readers know I have long been obsessed with the ease with which one can kill or maim oneself in the kitchen. Just the other day, a Toast commenter had to curtail their weightlifting after nearly losing a finger to their immersion blender. My father needed stitches after slicing a bagel. And, of course, avocados:
Just ask April Stewart Klausner, a New York illustrator and accomplished cook. Recently Ms. Klausner, 56, severed four tendons, multiple nerves and a blood vessel in her hand while pitting an avocado, something she’d done countless times.
Gushing blood and unable to feel or move two fingers, she was taken by ambulance to an emergency room. The injury required more than three hours of surgical repair and many months of painful rehab. It will take at least a year for the injured nerves to heal, and Ms. Klausner can only hope her hand will function normally, enabling her to resume her career full-speed.
The therapists at Lang Hand Therapy in Manhattan told her she was the fourth “avocado victim” they’d seen that month.
The comments are deliciously filled with tales of burns and cuts and gouges and spills and falls and blood-soaked paper towels, don’t miss them.
Often, these injuries are gadget-based, leading me to think that many kitchen gadgets fall into two categories: murderous and useful, or benign and never used (the loneliness of the salmon poacher!)
I’m a gadget monster, 100%. I waste an exceptional amount of money on doo-hickeys for cooking, some of which just collect dust (stupid bread machine, stupid citrus zester, stupid egg boiler that goes in the microwave), and some of which I use every day (the Cuisinart Griddler: it’s like a butch George Foreman grill that never melts). I also use my ice cream maker a lot, mostly for carrot cake ice cream and for innovatively pouring chopped-up Reese’s cups into Alton Brown’s chocolate ice cream.
So, let’s hear it. How have you injured yourself, what gadgets scare you, and which ones deserve a permanent place in your home?
And do you own the toaster that also cooks little eggs for you so you can make your own McMuffins? Because it’s gold.
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Tags: cooking, food, kitchen gadgets, kitchens, murder
I am also an avocado victim. I’ve finally found a forum to tell my tale! This past February was my first Valentine’s Day with my boyfriend, and we decided to celebrate by making a pot of chili at home and watching a movie (acknowledging the special occasion by eating an entire box of chocolates during the movie). The plan was for me to chop an avocado to serve on the chili, but when I attempted to remove the pit the knife went right through the skin and poked my finger. My man knows that I am not good with blood, so bless him he came running and held my hand under the tap. That was when I started feeling woozy. Next thing I knew, I woke up on the bathroom floor, my boyfriend cradling my head and looking horrified. I spent the rest of Valentine’s Day weepy and disoriented, and as it turned out the cut was so minor it barely needed a bandaid.
yes. The night before an important exam I decided to make apple muffins. I don’t remember why I thought this was a smart decision. Making apple muffins necessarily forces you to cut apples and I had recently bought a very nice and sharp knife. I was really proud of this new knife and decided to cut the apples with my awesome special Asian knife. Again, I don’t remember what made me think this was a smart move. I should also mention that my special apple-cutting skills include not cutting the apple on a cutting board but directly in my hand. I’m obviously a really smart person!
Yeah…. byebye healthy thumb tendon! 8 months of recovery, 2 operations and 16 months of physical therapy did not make you fully functional again 🙁
This exact thing happened to a student of mine the night before a midterm! Let the universe note that exams and apple chopping do not mix!
never again! 😀
I feel awful for you and Imma let you finish, but… the mental image of thumb physical therapy gives me the giggles. It’s sort of a combination of the (really stupid) Aflac commercials that’ve been airing lately, with those (also really stupid but a little brilliant, too) Steve Oedekerk movies such as Thumbtanic, Thumb Wars, etc.
well at least my physical therapist was extremely hot, right? And also nice to talk to, but mostly hot.
Oh man, I’ve very very very nearly been an avocado victim. I’m guessing she did that thing where you hack into the avocado pit and twist it to remove it. Which I’ve done and almost sliced off my damn finger because a.) I keep my knives razor sharp and b.) I wasn’t paying attention. The dream of guacamole is a distracting siren.
The dream of guacamole is a distracting siren.
Ain’t it the truth.
My confidence in the kitchen is so shaky that I barely allow myself access to such gadgets. I am so careful as to chop vegetables with a dull knife, especially as I grew up with a mother who had a knack for accidentally slicing and dicing herself. I could always tell it was serious when she yelled from the kitchen with this particular urgency that made my hair stand on end.
Nooooo, but dull knifes are actually more dangerous, because you have to use more pushing force to cut through!!! A sharp knife is a safe knife!
This is why I should not be allowed in kitchens! No knife is safest!
A sharp knife is a safe knife…unless you’re trying to use a sharp knife to cut a somewhat stale bagel. Especially when you’re holding that bagel in your hand, instead of balancing it on the counter.
(The doctor said I was lucky – I just missed slashing through the main nerve at the bottom of my left hand that conrols feeling to the fingers.)
I use butter knives to cut bagels because I would rather have a slightly mutilated bagel interior than a majorly mutilated hand.
You are way smarter (and less maimed) than I. I’d like to say I learned my lesson, but I’ve cut bagels in my hand again many times since then. It’s like I’m playing bagel chicken with Fate.
I’ve cut myself with a butter knife. Just a small wound, but it hurt so bad. They lull you in with a false sense of security.
Even seasoned cooks have accidents–I took a knife skills class (invaluable) but have still managed to cut fingers since then. My mom who was an amazing cook was still burning and cutting herself in her 70’s. I think we rush, our minds wander or we tend to do repetitive things mindlessly. That is why they say you should stay in the moment. Easier said than done.
I was about to be all like how in hell can a kitchen appliance be “butch” and then I followed the link and now I understand. I MUST HAVE IT.
I have thus far escaped avocado pit-maiming, mostly because I dig those suckers out with my fingers instead of using a knife but I have injured myself with other vegetables before!
Once when prepping salad ingredients at the restaurant I worked in after college (called Zoup!, it mainly served… soup) I sliced my index finger open on a tomato slicer. It was bleeding quite a lot so I toddled off to wash it, getting incredibly light-headed just as I entered the bathroom. I must have passed out then, because all I remember is waking up on the bathroom floor in pitch darkness freaking out because the cut had somehow caused me to go blind (had I really lost that much blood??) for a good thirty seconds or so before realising that the light was off. Humiliated, I stood up, cleaned the blood off, bandaged it up and went back to work. I still have the scar today!
I also worked at a restaurant in college that mainly served soup! I cut myself while chopping potatoes one afternoon. I was very close to passing out but managed not to. I still have the scars on my fingers.
…and that is why I pit avocados with my fingers. Well, that and so I can eat delicious avocado flesh right off my fingers. Nom.
I have 2 very good knifes that I hone regularly and I have thus far escaped maiming. Which is weird, because I am clumsy as hell and have injured myself in every other room of my house.
I keep my knives nice and sharp as well- my main chef’s knife, the one I love and respect and use for 75% of all my tasks, is a $20 Chicago Cutlery knife I bought over ten years ago in college (I think it was at Wal-Mart, the only purveyor of kitchen gear in town). That still stands as the best deal for the money I’ve gotten in years. My parents did give me a Wusthof paring knife for my birthday this year, though. Damn, it’s gorgeous, and I bet with a little care I could use it for the rest of my life.
Yep, twice in the last year I’ve stabbed myself in the palm while cutting up avocados. Luckily minor, though.
Insult to injury, one of the comments in this Metafilter post (link) about horrific kitchen accidents points out that it’s “a remarkably common middle class injury.”
lol, two of my friends have been vying for ‘most middle class injury ever’ after one cut herself on a ciabatta and the other one hurt herself on a yogurt pot lid
How on earth does someone get hurt from a yogurt lid?
I’m still trying to work out how the first one hurt herself on bread.
that shit is mad crusty, it could happen.
They are secretly sharp. It’s the ones with the foil on top and no other cover.
I ALWAYS cut myself with foil when opening wine. Every time. When I was a bartender I had, like, Frankenstein hands from all the foil cuts (and yes I used the little knife tool).
It’s a fact: for most bottles of wine, you can slip the entire foil cap off by just pulling while twisting slightly. If that doesn’t work, just extract the cork through the foil, bend back the foil.
My in-laws theorize that the only time one can slip the entire foil cap off is if the wine is good. They call it “el test” – and delight in terrifying waitstaff by demanding the bottle, trying to slip off the foil, and then talking rapidly in Spanish for about a minute about said test.
They also have charts on the efficacy of “el test”, because they are engineers. (It is pretty effective.)
Oh, hey! In that MeFi thread, I described the safe way to pit an avocado. (Yes, I did witness a co-worker stab right into her palm trying to dig out the pit with the point of a knife while cradling the avocado half in her off hand. YIKES.)
Go ahead, touch the Cornballer, you know best.
How many times do I have to say it? “There is always money in the banana stand.”
I’m a total kitchen klutz and I have more bar burns on my wrists and arms than you can shake a stick at, allll from reaching into the oven and bumping into one of the edges. You’d think I’d get better at aiming my hands, but mostly my pain tolerance has gone up.
Last year was my worst burn to date–preparing a fancy / caszh summer lunch for old-people friends my husband invited over, I was a bit behind schedule, and it was a new kitchen, and wowee were their burners more powerful than my pathetic NYC stove. So, when I put the first handful of onions into the heated oil, about a handful of very very hot oil exploded back all over my tender forearm, leaving some wicked looking drippy burns. Yowza. Some super-hippy admin at my office preached the crap out of some aloe, so I took her advice, and let me tell you, aloe + open wound / burn = miraculous. I sliced off a little slice of raw aloe flesh twice a day and strapped it to my wrist / arm with gauze + Ace bandage and I have almost NO scar now. You can still kind of see the darker outline when you look closely, but I don’t have scary scar-texture skin all over my forearm. Amazing.
I really try to stay away from one-use gadgets, but I do super love my ice cream maker (I have the KitchenAid attachment bowl, but when I get millions of dollars and infinite kitchen storage, I plan to go in for the compressor model. Multiple flavors within 24 hours of each other!!). Also, my garlic press. Never mincing again. For serious.
I also have the super-nice Wusthof knives that we registered for, and I’m afraid I don’t deserve them b/c I don’t really know how to hone so great, and I don’t think for these I actually want to put them through the sharpener, because I don’t want to mess up the blade, right. . .?! They’re ~2.5 years old now, though, so maybe it’s time? Would love some Toast input on this important matter.
(Also, moral of the story is that I am no longer permitted to cook in short sleeves, sleeveless tops, or open-toed shoes when the Hubs is around and might catch me endangering my exposed skin. Probably just as well to follow commercial kitchen rules if you’re me. Minus the neckerchief and cap, because blech.)
AVOCADO VICTIM
Avocado victims, and those wishing to never be such, rejoice for The Glove.
I lost the tips of two fingers trying to cut corn on the cob into rounds. Ended up not needing stitches (I just barely missed the bone, so the skin grew over naturally and now I just have gross-looking flat-topped fingers), but my then-boyfriend rescued the tips off the cutting board just in case and packed them on ice for the ER. Reader, I married him. You don’t just let a guy who will pick up your dismembered finger bits walk out of your life.
I work in a kitchen store and within weeks of buying the little ceramic mandoline I was so excited about I sliced off some rather large chunks of various fingers. I have also caught knives (or at least attempted to), suffered a wide and amusing variety of burns and of course gotten all kinds of run-of-the-mill knife cuts and nicks. I have a terrible affinity for mildly-drunk-cooking.
I have most certainly gone to bed with cuts on my fingers but afraid I’d bleed out from them. Several times.
oh my god, mandolines are terrifying. even with the plastic guard thing, i always end up hand-slicing the last three inches of carrot, because i can’t even.
i also ruin my manicure on the box grater fairly often, but i’ve avoided major disaster.
Mandolines are brutal. I think they were inspired by doll guillotines? It seems fitting at least.
Yes to “Mildly drunk cooking”!
I find myself all too often full of gin with a desire to bake something really complicated or fry up something. The worst that ever came of that was burning my thigh with boiling water (always wear pants while making tea, kids!). Very very painful. But no scars!
Mandolines are the sirens of the kitchen. They promise such smooth, even slicing…and then you realize too late that the price is the tip of your finger.
I burn my hand in the same goddamn place every single time I bake. Something about the angle at which I move in to grab the warm golden whatever in the oven means I graze my hand against the red hot wire rack above. I have a nasty-looking burn/scab there right now from when I made quiche last week (also a contender for most middle-class injury).
When we first started dating, my boyfriend burned himself baking croissants, which I think is up there with quiche burn.
I ALWAYS burn myself on that bit of metal that connects the handle to the frying pan. That’s why I now run it under freezing water like I’m decontaminating a nuclear fuel rod before I even think about washing the rest of the pan.
Oh god, kitchen gadgets are like sweet sweet crack to me. LAWD. I don’t need that Cuisinart griddler OR that combination toaster/egg-cooker, but damn do I want them. I went to World Market this weekend and bought a teeny little measuring cup and an itty-bitty whisk so I can more easily make single-serving cakes and muffins. And I have to disagree on the citrus zester; that saved me when I needed lemon zest for ginger-lemon scones. And it’s so much fun to use!
My worst kitchen injury was probably when I was using my Swiss Army knife to slice cheese in college and sliced open the pad of my middle finger. That was over ten years ago and I can still see the scar. The most embarrassing one was when I was peeling potatoes for my mom during Thanksgiving a few years back and managed to draw blood twice within ten minutes. I put down the peeler after the second injury and retreated to the appetizer spread.
Oh my god, why am I reading these comments
Seriously. I am never setting foot in my kitchen again.
AHHHHHHHHH KNIVES CUTTING BLOOD OH MY GOD AHHHHHHHHHHHH <– Me, on the inside, leaving this post before it becomes me making a scene at my cubicle.
The (quite romantic) theme song for this post is Jens Lekman’s “Your Arms Around Me:”
I was slicing up an avocado
When you came up behind me
With your silent brand new sneakers
Your reflection I did not see
It was the hottest day in August
We were heading for the sea
For a second my mind started drifting
You put your arms around me
Blood spraying on the kitchen sink
“What’s this” I have time to think
I see the tip of my index finger
My mind is slowly creating a link
From your mouth speaks your lovely voice
The softest words ever spoken
What’s broken can always be fixed
What’s fixed will always be broken
And poetry supplied by Plath:
What a thrill –
My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of hinge
Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white.
Then that red plush.
Etc etc.
There is a brilliant French & Saunders sketch from 20-odd years ago about 2 older “stiff upper lip” English ladies. One of them is cutting vegetables and says, “Oh! Damn.”
“What?”
“Cut m’finger.”
“What, all the way off?”
“No, it’s just sort of dangling.” *wiggles nearly severed finger around*
“Do you want a bandage?”
“Hell no, a lot of fuss and nonsense about nothing. I’ll cut it all the way off.” *chop* *whistles* “Here, dogs!”
At this point I was almost passed out but was also screaming with laughter.
Oh my god, this website is psychic. I sliced off the very tippy tip of my fingertip yesterday whilst chopping garlic–forgot to curl my fingers under, rookie mistake. Learned all about panic responses! (There may have been that delay and then wailing that is normally not seen past toddlerhood.) Managed to get it bandaged all by myself and didn’t pass out once. (I did throw up a bit.) Now I can’t type. Fun in the kitchen!
edit: also I’m still nauseous so I can’t read the rest of these comments. Know that my thoughts are with you, fellow kitchen-victims!
This is just more justification for my dislike of avocados.
Last November I almost cut my fingertip off when I was trying to open a pouch of frozen cheesy rolls (a common snack here in Brazil) with a dull steak knife. It was at night and I had no idea where the nearest emergency room was, or if the hospital system accepted my foreign health insurance, so I went back to the freezer and grabbed a can of beer and used that to ice my finger. So basically, the freezer taketh away, but then the freezer feels bad and giveth a can of cold, crappy beer in restitution. I didn’t end up making the cheesy rolls that night, either–probably the most tragic aspect of that situation.
I used to use a spoon to pit avocadoes (avocados?) but I have an Oxo avocado tool I won in a Facebook competition (this guy: http://www.oxo.com/p-1201-3-in-1-avocado-slicer.a… and it’s pretty good.
Oddly enough none of my many (MANY) hand injuries are kitchen-based. Maybe I just don’t cook enough? (although I have definitely gotten minor cuts from the super-smart “I’ll just cut this in my hand” like a lot of other commenters)
Hm, the worst thing I’ve ever ever done to myself in the kitchen is always scrape my knuckles on the grater, and losing half a nail to the peeler. Pretty much every time.
yes, scraping skin off with your cheese grater, ugh ugh ugh. It always takes a while to heal, too. And it gets mixed in with the cheese! so gross!
I…still eat it anyway.
the one “tool” I hate most in the kitchen is the cheese grater – but it is in the cleaning process that I grate my own knuckles, every time…
First, I need you to know that I wrote a mash note to the Cuisinart Griddler in 2006. Still have the same one. It’s a bit gross now, and the red light’s out on one of the knobs, but it continues to bring me joy.
The only stitches I’ve ever had were in my fingers, following kitchen accidents. The first involved a mango, same deal as the avocado: Cut into it, hit the pit, and slid the knife right over the middle finger of my other hand. The second involved a Darwin Award-worthy attempt to free a soup can lid that was still attached in two places after several passes with the can opener.
At the hospital for the second one, a nurse told me can lids are basically the worst. Number two was bagels. That’s how I learned not to slice a bagel while holding it in one hand.
Okay even having contributed a couple stories myself I have now read all the way through and am sitting at my desk with my hands clenched in fists to protect my poor scared fingers. Aieee!
Few dramatic kitchen injuries, but I have nearly burned the whole place down by leaving a dish towel in the oven AND THEN TURNING THE OVEN ON.
Why put a dish towel in the oven? How long does it take to set a dish towel on fire? What does a burning dish towel smell like? Questions for which I wish I did not have answers.
I lit an oven glove on fire. They burn for hours, even after you throw them outside into the snow.
Yes, they smolder nearly as long as your traumatic flashbacks continue to interrupt the rest of your day.
Out of interest, why did you put it in the oven?
Aha, see, it was actually very reasonable. I was making pizza dough, and I put a dish towel-covered bowl of dough to rise in the oven, which I had turned on briefly in order to warm things up and speed up the rising process.
There were, however, several problems. The first is that the dish towel slid off the bowl slightly and was touching the oven’s heating coil. Second, while I may have meant for the oven to be on only briefly, I may have also forgotten to turn it off.
I once wrote a poem called “There’s a Reason I’m Afraid of the Cheese Grater”.
‘I have cut off the tip of every single finger on my left hand from holding down vegetables while cutting and/or peeling them. [Lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, and celery were the offending causes.] Stitches were involved in three of these incidents.
I would like to point out that I have never once injured myself while making dessert.
Another avocado victim: It was Cinco de Mayo almost ten years ago and a hot guy was coming over and I was making guacamole for the first time. Severed a nerve in my left pointer finger trying to pit an avocado. My roommate thought I cut my finger off and panicked and tried to call 911 twice while I cried and cleaned up the kitchen and told her to pull herself together and please go get her car so I could go get stitches. The stitches were done by a med student and had to be done twice because they messed them up, and then I had to go back in two weeks later to have surgery to have the nerve reattached to itself. Still can’t really feel the inside of my pointer finger. But I saved the guacamole, which was a delicious consolation prize.
Important Question: What happened to the hot guy??
I once very nearly severed the tendon on the back of my right index finger on the lid of a bean can – I was trying to wash it out for recycling, and the lid was sticking straight up. (Now I detach all my can lids immediately.) I’m pretty sure I lost at least a pint of blood through that 1/2″ slice, and it went through the tendon sheath – so close to not being able to point right at things! I was in college, and I wandered around three dorms before finding an RA with bandages (they were all in a meeting somewhere). Somehow I didn’t drip any of the vast pool of blood! At least not that I noticed…
There have also been several burns, usually from the pot holder not being all the way around the handle. Or possibly from butter jumping out of a hot pan.
Also, I have cut myself on many many things in life (glitter bottle, yogurt lid (the foil kind, or the edge of the clear plastic kind!), paper, cardboard, museum board (the worst!), and all manner of other strange and not necessarily even sharp items, but never once a knife!
I once sliced the tip of my thumb and a little bit of my thumbnail off.
The location was my new apartment in a new-to-me city, cooking my first meal of my first full day alone there.
The weapon was a brand new Cutco knife from a housewarming gift set. Sharper knives are safer, but only when you’re paying attention, and I wasn’t.
Healing was painful–especially before I learned to buy nonstick bandages–but it was otherwise a pretty minor injury, and the good news is that the whole dome of my thumb grew back, fingerprint and all, with a tough layer of scar tissue that I’ve knicked bloodlessly several times since. (I have a bad habit of using that thumb to push whatever I’m mincing–garlic, ginger, herbs–toward the blade.)
I’ll flay little strips of skin from of my knuckles sometimes with my vegetable peeler (damn you, slippery irregular potatoes), and occasionally smaller pieces from the tip of my index finger with my chef’s knife. Those are the worst, because it turns out the tip of your index finger is actually used in seemingly every task needed for daily life and Band-Aids will NOT stick to my fingers. Fingers crossed that my accidents will stay minor!
I’m very careful in the kitchen generally, ever since I accidentally ran face-first into a baking sheet on its way out of the oven in my pre-school years. I’m lucky I was so young when it happened or I’d have scar tissue over half my chin right now. To this day, I am unbelievably cautious when it comes to boiling water, spattering oil, and other hot things.
You know, I’m pretty cautious in the kitchen too, and while I didn’t have an early run-in like you did (glad you’re OK!) one of my strongest memories of my childhood was when the pizza warming in the oven caught fire and my mother had to drag it out onto the linoleum and stomp it out. (To make matters better, this all happened I think literally ten minutes before a horde of kids was set to arrive for my sixth birthday party. Poor Mom.) I’m wondering if that solidified my vision of the kitchen as a place of potential danger.
I’ve always been very, very careful with knives since I was a weester and my dad almost chopped my finger off when I tried to sneak a tomato slice off the cutting board while he was still slicing away. (Dad has fearsome knife skills. I do not.) So I am very wary and very careful and I never touch the blade end of the immersion blender. Because I like having intact fingers!
I remember as a kid hearing about a friend of my parents who tried to catch a glass as it was shattering in the sink and ended up with major nerve damage to her hands, hundreds of stitches, etc etc. I think that story combined with my natural tendency towards anxiety makes me more careful. Of course, having said this, I’m sure I’ll go home tonight and accidentally slice open an artery while I’m cutting a squash.
I almost lost a finger to an immersion blender once, too. It healed well, but I learned my lesson about leaving the blade half attached to the motor half while scraping it out.
This is late, but a tip, courtesy of my brother’s experience: Use the finger guard when you’re cutting something on a mandoline, and even then, be very careful. You can apparently lose a good chunk of your fingertip with astonishing speed.
ETA: Ahh, missed the mandoline discussion above! I’ll just second everything said up there too. Mandolines be sneaky.
The best thing I learned working in restaurant prep is to always curve in the part of your finger below the 1st knuckle and run the knife along the part of your fingers between the 1st and 2nd knuckle. If you make this an ingrained habit you’ll significantly reduce your chances of lopping off your fingertips.
ETA: Also, from Boy Scouts: always cut AWAY from your body.
ETA2: Obviously this didn’t help me with the two injuries that I said ALWAYS happen to me upthread.
Boiling water + boobs + asshole cat = NOT OK. Luckily, the second time it happened, it was on the other side. Oh, fyi – don’t rip off your shirt and bra soaked in boiling water – your skin comes off, too. Cold water over the cloth, first.
My grandmother cut off the tip one of her fingers (up to the first joint) using a mixer–it’s like a horrific urban legend, but ACTUALLY TRUE
My mom cut off the tip of her ring finger (not quite the whole joint but close) on a deli meat slicer when she was a teenager and it’s always fascinated me. “Show me your midget finger, mom!!” does not go over very well when it’s ALL THE TIME.
I have always been afraid of doing this and you have just validated my fear! Thank you! I will now stop feeling overly paranoid when I’m being incredibly careful to make sure that the mixer is unplugged before letting my hand anywhere near the beaters.
In other recent kitchen validations: My mother has always reached her hand into the garbage disposal to check to see if there’s any spoons or whatnot in there, and always looked at me like I was crazy when I became distressed at seeing this. Recently I had to spend a lot of time researching garbage disposal repairs for my own apartment and was heartened to see every site ever say things like DO NOT REACH YOUR HAND INTO THE GARBAGE DISPOSAL!!! EVER!!! Next step: Convince my mother of this.
I once cut up a couple fingers with the handle of a butter knife. I was trying to cut some slices off a block of cheese and couldn’t be bothered to get out a more appropriate knife, so I was just pressing down really hard on the handle to get it through the cheese. Turns out that my butter knife handles are impressively sharp if and only if you are pressing down on them hard enough to force them through a block of cheese.
Surprisingly, I don’t think I’ve ever drawn blood with my actual sharp knives, just the butter knife.
My dad is the kind of person who every time he sees anyone cutting a bagel, he reminds them of the dangers of cutting bagels and asks where the blade is going to go if they slip. Accordingly, I don’t cut anything in the kitchen or chop wood without automatically figuring out where the blade/ax will go if I slip. So far, no kitchen cuts, just various improbable burns (1/3 of my left hand one time, a long horizontal burn line across my stomach etc.).
Maybe 10 years ago at Thanksgiving breakfast, my mom sliced her finger open pretty good cutting bagels and we had to go to the emergency room. The ER doctor told us that bagels were basically the #1 ER food. We got one of those crappy plastic bagel slicers shortly thereafter.
I wonder if it’s avocados now that bread is so out of favor?
I cut my hand on a can of corn and ended up in emergency hand surgery for a severed nerve and nicked tendon. I had 12 weeks of therapy. At one point I had garment hooks superglued to my fingernails so I could hook it to rubber bands at my wrist and do finger extension exercises. It was epic!
I cut myself so often I recently bought a Microplane Cut Protection Glove. If I can be bothered to put it on when I use knives or open cans, which is every day, maybe it’ll be worth the $17!
My most recent kitchen injury was slicing off a chunk of the tip of my thumb while cutting up onions. I bled all over the place, then worried the on-call nurse my mum called because I wouldn’t stop bleeding (and I have zero reason for excessive bleeding). We eventually ended up at urgent care and the NP apparently thought I was drug seeking when I asked for pain killers (I can’t have anything OTC, I’ll have a severe reaction and die).
Now I just have a wonky smile line on my thumb nail, and weird scar that most people can’t see.
It’s like you knew I was coming! In the recent past I have:
– sliced two fingers on a mandoline (fortunately it was on the 1/8 inch setting)
– taken a little chunk out of my palm slicing a bagel
– forgotten I was using a smaller than usual knife to crush my garlic, slipped, and sliced open my palm
– checked to see if the stove was on by touching it. for way too long.
– lost a piece of fingernail in a salad
– burned myself more times in more ways than I can really remember
My husband has threatened to not let me use the kitchen any more, but he likes my food too much…
I once sprained my foot by dropping a crockpot onto it. My husband handed me a glass of wine and told me to get out of the kitchen. Worth it.
Not enough upthumbs for this! Husbands are worth it.
I’ve had a lot of close calls (especially with knives), but the one that finally got me was a dinner plate. I was washing a ceramic plate the other night and it slipped from my hands, the edge hit the sink, and it broke into large shards. As it slipped I reached for it with much vigor, and jammed my hand onto one of the shards. It cut into the split between my ring finger and middle finger. Lots and lots of blood. Thankfully no ceramic chips got into my wound. Dearest Husband got me some bandages and tape at the store, and I felt like a boxer with my wrapped hand the rest of the weekend.
I’ve never had a gadget incident, other than leaving some potatoes in a cabinet inside a bowl, remembering they were there a few months later (when the smell and the fruit flies caught my attention), trying to get the bowl down and spilling maggoty potato juice all over my wonderful blender and rice cooker. They were never the same.
I just added an oxo corn stripper to my amazon wishlist. Corn OFF the cob!
I bought a mandoline while drunk online shopping this summer, along with a cut resistant glove (I’ve learned my lesson with the cheese grater). But I’ve only used it once. What do y’all make with your mandolines?
Aaaaaaah, I am that commenter who blitzed her finger in my immersion blender. I want everyone to know that I had used the tool THAT SAME DAY successfully and safely 4 other times (getting ready for a party) and it wasn’t until I was distracted by friends in the kitchen that I made the obvious and stupid mistake of trying to clean it out while it was still plugged in, and what the **** is with that hair trigger?! There is a NYT article all about it, about the design flaw, and all the accidents are EXACTLY the same and are often committed by people who are very experienced in the kitchen. The comments on the article are worse than usual, full of nothing but absolute disgust and hatred for people who could be SO STUPID. Guess what folks, it can happen to the best and brightest. I got away with just a few stitches, managed to keep my nail bed intact, and now I have badass scars going all around my left index finger wheeeee. But there was blood sprayed EVERYWHERE and I will admit that my first reaction after realizing what I had done was to look around the floor for my fingertip, because I was sure it had been severed.
Other than that, the worst thing I have ever done in the kitchen was probably to take a cast iron pan out of a 500F oven, set it on the stove top and then 5 seconds later forget it had just been Forged from **** and grabbed the handle with my bare hand.
Yes! Me too! Omg just change the fucking design on that hair trigger! They make bbq lighters harder to use, WHY NOT IMMERSION BLENDERS?
ETA: the blood spray on mind was also epic. EPIC. All over the cupboards. My scar is also on my left index finger. Still have weird nerve damage.
we are legion! and will probably be finding missed areas of blood spatter for the rest of time.
I am so obsessed with kitchen gadgets/appliances that I wrote a whole post about it. I have since acquired the Griddler and have to agree with Nicole that it is a gift from the gods. http://crasstalk.com/2011/06/my-essential-kitchen…
My insane roommate has an inordinate amount of kitchen gadgets. Some I use and some should be in a museum. Because he got them at thrift stores. Heck, he has so many we could be a kitchen gadget museum.
I use my ice cream maker often, but it’s loud and he makes me take it to the garage. Which I forget about because I can’t hear it D:
We have a breadmaker but I hate using it. I don’t know why? I don’t like to bake so you’d think this would be the way to go, but no.
Two juicers. A citrus juicer and fruit and vege juicer. A toaster oven. A Foreman that I broke the leg on which kills me because I loved it, so I will look into this Griddler you speak of. An actual tabletop griddle. A rice cooker. Probably other stuff that I can’t remember or haven’t seen.
I don’t think I’ve ever hurt on any of these things. I usually just cut myself doing something stupid. Or burn the top of my hand taking things out of the stove.
I’m an immersion blender victim, like those people in that NYT article. I still have nerve damage and a weird scar that hurts so bad when poked.
I DO OWN THAT EGG MAKING TOASTER AND IT IS THE BEST AND I LOVE IT. That is all.
I've cut myself with a butter knife. Just a small wound, but it hurt so bad. They lull you in with a false sense of security.
They are secretly sharp. It's the ones with the foil on top and no other cover.
I have always been afraid of doing this and you have just validated my fear! Thank you! I will now stop feeling overly paranoid when I'm being incredibly careful to make sure that the mixer is unplugged before letting my hand anywhere near the beaters.
In other recent kitchen validations: My mother has always reached her hand into the garbage disposal to check to see if there's any spoons or whatnot in there, and always looked at me like I was crazy when I became distressed at seeing this. Recently I had to spend a lot of time researching garbage disposal repairs for my own apartment and was heartened to see every site ever say things like DO NOT REACH YOUR HAND INTO THE GARBAGE DISPOSAL!!! EVER!!! Next step: Convince my mother of this.
Not enough upthumbs for this! Husbands are worth it.
While long-term camping, I decided to clean the camp cooker. Had cleaned the grill and the pan supports, then took the top off to scrub.
Why I thought I needed to catch the damn thing when I dropped it to the floor, I don’t know. It was made of steel and the floor was dirt. No harm was coming to the piece of cooker. My finger, however, suddenly was gushing blood.
I couldn’t see a towel, so I stuck my finger in my mouth, and went looking for my boyfriend. I found him in a friend’s caravan, but when I took my finger out of my mouth to show him the damage, the blood went spurt and he went faint. As I needed him to drive me to a hospital, this was not good.
This was when I learnt that, if you do cut yourself and need to hold back a tide of blood, do not use cotton wool. As the blood dries, the cotton wool fluffiness sticks to the wound and it hurts when they take it off.
I had not managed to completely sever my finger pad, so the ER stitched it back into place. Lost my job because of it, moved city, changed boyfriend… and all I have to show for it is a small, weirdly smooth scar on my finger.
While long-term camping, I decided to clean the camp cooker. Had cleaned the grill and the pan supports, then took the top off to scrub.
Why I thought I needed to catch the damn thing when I dropped it to the floor, I don’t know. It was made of steel and the floor was dirt. No harm was coming to the piece of cooker. My finger, however, suddenly was gushing blood.
I couldn’t see a towel, so I stuck my finger in my mouth, and went looking for my boyfriend. I found him in a friend’s caravan, but when I took my finger out of my mouth to show him the damage, the blood went spurt and he went faint. As I needed him to drive me to a hospital, this was not good.
This was when I learnt that, if you do cut yourself and need to hold back a tide of blood, do not use cotton wool. As the blood dries, the cotton wool fluffiness sticks to the wound and it hurts when they take it off.
I had not managed to completely sever my finger pad, so the ER stitched it back into place. Lost my job because of it, moved city, changed boyfriend… and all I have to show for it is a small, weirdly smooth scar on my finger.