Saturday, May 21, 2011

New Saucepans & Narrow escapes

It was a cold, rainy night, in June last year. I was 37 weeks pregnant with Felix. Scott was working late and I had kept dinner warm for his arrival home. Not thinking straight (as I tend not to when I'm 37 weeks pregnant) I placed a saucepan of pasta inside a slightly larger saucepan of water and popped them on the stove top to gently simmer. A good way to keep residual heat flowing through the food, without drying it out. By the time Scott had eaten his meal and I got around to rinsing the dirty plates and pots, it had been a couple of hours. My clever, gradual, heating method had backfired. The saucepans had welded together. Tight. As I wrenched and pulled, nothing was going to budge them. The combination of water and steam had expanded and locked those babies together, like something out of a high school lab experiment.


Enter my resourceful husband... aka Mr Science. He had a grand plan to put both saucepans back on the stove top, to create a surge of steam and release the pressure that had built up between them. Well, release the pressure... it did. To such a degree, we blew up the kitchen. Or more so, the glass range hood above our stove top and the cupboards above the glass range hood. The explosion was mega! For many days, weeks, months later, I ran through the what if's in my head. I will always count my lucky stars that Angus was already snug in his bed and that we both decided to clear the kitchen in those few minutes it took for the saucepans to become... ahem... detached. Thousands of pebbly fragments of glass rained down over 3 separate rooms of our tiny home and the trapped boiling hot water from the bottom saucepan splattered the roof and walls of the kitchen. It took hours to clean up the glass... and we were STILL finding bits in obscure places months later. Our saucepan mishap taught us many lessons that night. Never underestimate the power of steam being the main one. It also raised a few questions... how were we about to become parents again? We blew up our own kitchen... Hmmm!


The saucepans were never quite the same and I have been managing with their battle scars ever since. Almost a year on. But the time has definitely come to retire the old faithfuls, that have served us well, for the past 9 years (I like to get my money's worth). So this week I am joining in with Maxabella, to be ever so grateful for brand spanking new saucepans. A whole set of them. On sale. And Scanpan, no less. Grateful for saucepans AND narrow escapes... I will never forget how close we came to a disaster almost too frightening to comprehend.


My lovely new set of saucepans... may be just the inspiration I need to get my cook on!


10 comments:

  1. Oh Scanpans, be still my beating heart! Enjoy x

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  2. What a fabulous story teller you are Julie. A great read - but it must have been rather frightening at the time. Really enjoyed reading this :) Cazxx

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  3. Love it! Thanks for stopping by my blog too! Mishaps in the kitchen are my specialty but blowing it up.....Oh My! What a great read!

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  4. Oh gosh that was a close call, scary stuff.
    And yay for new pans I'm also in desperate need for a new set myself as I've killed quite a few over the years.

    Where abouts are they on sale?

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  5. Oh Julie, you know I feel your pain! Enjoy those saucepans, we are still using Big W bargains nearly 10 years later! gxo

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  6. Hi! I have just read your about me, the youngest of 7 kids... eek, 6 brothers!

    Scanpan, ohh the envy- im with Georgie here, we are still going on some nasty target pans... i've almost killed the frying pan!

    thanks so much for joining me over at the shack- i'm joining up here too

    xo em

    oh, my bestie has a little 2 year old named felix (best name ever) and they just had a boy called milo!

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  7. Oh my goodness - that must have been SO SCARY! Almost enough to swear you off cooking for good!

    I have a huge case of saucepan envy going on - my mismatched set is still 'working' so I have no excuse to replace them just yet - though when the day comes when they mysteriously 'melt' together (thanks for the idea hehe) I sure hope I get one as beautiful and shiny as this one.

    Have fun cooking!!!

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  8. Oh wow those saucepans look great! i am super jealous! Glad no one came to harm that night and you are all safe. Enjoy and happy cooking! cant wait to see what you make :)
    xx

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  9. Wowzers. My Mum would call that a "whoopsee" moment. Just be done with it, and move on, especially if no one was hurt...

    Good really does come out of the bad!! :D

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  10. Oh gosh, that is so dangerous, you're so lucky!! I can imagine you finding bits of saucepan for years!! Wishing you well with many successful feasts with the new saucepans. Good ones will last you a lifetime, steam forgiving of course. Love Posie

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