[mudbug]

Any stories out there?

[Chef David Simpson]

I'll come back to this one.

One time in my home kitchen I had heated my big teflon pot to stirfry, and forgot about it. I remember thinking, "That's funny, someone must be barbequeing!?" Well, that someone was ME! As I was trying to put out the fire with my handy dandy baking soda, I dropped the pan to the floor of our apartment. So we still have a painful reminder of that fateful meal. I remember seeing cooks doing that purposefully, (making a flaming wok) in Thailand, and then they would char some kale for this special dish...That remains a mystery to me!
I don't know if that qualified as a "grease" fire story?

[momoreg]

I have a few stories of sterno fires... I have a friend/ coworker who's a total pyro, and loves to light sternos. I have seen him almost set 3 client's houses on fire already. That man should have his sterno license revoked.

The only one that comes to mind is when I got my first real cooking job at a hospital. I was cooking hamburgers on a sheet pan under this industrial broiler when the department head, and old englishman with a cane and limp and noticed that there seemed to be a lot of smoke coming from the burgers. Is everything okay Adam? he asked as I pulled out the sheet pan in front of him with the towering inferno in his nose. Dumbfounded and a bit nervous with him standing there getting bbq'd I just stood there, and in that old English accent..."Aren't you going to do something about it? Thank god I knew enough to use salt which was handiest rather than water and blow his *** back to England. I kept the job but without that evil eye always cast in my direction!

[mudbug]

Chef David Simpson,

Looking forward to your story....

[Greg]

This could also go in the embarassing moments thread. 1st day at a new job working the broiler. Turns out that it's the broiler cook's responsibility to filter the fryer. Fortunately, it was one of the ones with the self-contained filtering things. Unfortunately, I was more caught up figuring out how exactly to work it to pay attention to what I was doing. I walk off to ask someone a question about it and suddenly hear the saute cook cussing. Turns out I'd never turned the burners off! We got a sheet pan over it before any damage was done to anything other than my ego.

[Nick.Shu]

hehe, yeah, now that brings back memories.

After a detailed explanation on how to use a wok, i proceeded to follow the directions, heat wok till smoking, and then oil, let oil smoke then cook.

So i started, and being a flared, flaming wok devotee from way back, though hmm, lets send this wok to ****.

Some reason or another, i got distracted. Whoompth, wok No1 goes up in flames, chef comes over, "quick put the other wok on top now!" ok, done. The heat tranfered from wok 1 to wok 2 and once again, whoompth.

Gees i tell you, this would have to be both one of the most funniest, and at the same time, embarassing scenes ive ever encountered standing blushing and LOLing.

So we covered up the woks with a tray and that was that.

[momoreg]

Nick.shu

I like the way you spell the sound of the wok going up in flames!!!

[augiewren]

This happened at a small dinner party. A roommate and I had invited 2 ladies over for dinner. For the finale, we had decided to make bananas foster. I sauteed everything and went to add some rum. Picked up a bottle and didn't look at the label. Of course it was 151 proof. Lit the match and WOOMPTH (I liked that sound too)! It was like the volcano in Las Vegas. We ended up putting the metal lid to the trash can on top to get it out. Ruined not only the bananas and the pan but the screen in the exhaust filter as well. When we returned to the dining room, our dates were literally on the floor laughing. I guess this qualifies as most embarrassing moment as well. I've been very careful to read labels for over 15 years now.

I got two. One with grease. One with bourbon. Bourbon first. I was approx. 18 years old and was supposed to be making some glazed apples with bourbon and honey for some special. Instead of using large saute pan, I get the cute idea to use the flat-top grill that is open to the dining room. Ya Know, a little showmanship. Well, the apples get to browning and smelling good and I'm flipping the spatulas like some benihana reject and then it was time to glaze them bad boys, so I opened the Jack Daniels bottle and proceeded to pour out a very large dollop(1.5 cups if I remember right) into meas. cup. I knew it MIGHT flame a bit and I'd heard that bottles could explode. SAFETY FIRST!!! I took that JD and threw it on those apples and......the only thing that saved me from being badly burned was that the GIGANTIC fireball that erupted completely around my upper body was over almost as quick as it appeared. When I realized what had happened and regained my wits, I looked out into the dining room to see everybody absolutely frozen in terror. Only after I said, TAH DAH!!! did anybody move. I received a standing ovation. Absolutely true story. p.s. I was told the flame hit the twenty ft high ceiling. pss I'll do grease later.


[This message has been edited by mofo1 (edited 01-21-2001).]

Well there wasn't any grease today, but plenty of smoke at a Cake Club demo today. Very fun. A cake decorator from Sweet Lady Janes in Bev Hills showed us how we can do special effect cakes. One was a skull, which when cut, a bloody syrup oozes out of it. The smoke came with the Volcano Cake. Very cool The lava cascaded down the "volcano" as smoke puffed out for about 3 or 4 minutes. Cool.

[Nick.Shu]

its probably very inappropriate, but i love that sound. If your using odourised gas, then oops but ive perfected the art of flaming big. The art is to look nonchalant - no big deal and seen it a thousand times before.

Hehehe.

Mofo1,

!!! !!!!!

My actual grease story isn't so dramatic. Using a big propane catering grill for the first time a few summers ago. In the bottom of this thing is a trough that runs completely under the cooking area that you are to keep filled with water AT ALL TIMES. If you don't the drippings from 300 lbs of whole ribeye will burst into a very large fire right now. At that point you might as well throw your entire misting bottle at it because that little bit a nothing ain't gonna help.