Battle-Scarred Chef

Goodness knows that I try ... to cook and not maim myself while I am at it ... but it's hard for a poor old fella. Sometimes it's harder than others. Yesterday, for example, I decided to make my rather tasty sweet potato soup. Suddenly, I just feel more like cooking than I have recently. I don't so much enjoy cooking at the cottage because my implements are not at hand and because the local food sources don't always measure up. But I'm home now and determined to revert to a proper diet after feasting off the fat of the land for far too long now.

Troubles ensued: not major ones, but I did suffer some minor wounds. In fact, as I gaze down upon my right index finger, five little scrapes gaze back at me. They are from the grating of the orange zest and the ginger. I received new graters for Christmas. They lie flat and catch the food nicely, but something about the trajectory sometimes results in me adding particles of my own flesh into the mix.

The second minor casualty occurred when I was transferring the roasted ingredients into the soup pot to boil, I managed allow my thumb to slip from the pot holder and caress the rather hot roasting pan. Minor burn: the worst was yet to come.

After boiling and simmering all of the ingredients, it was time to transfer them, batch by batch, into the blender. I think it happened on the third batch. For whatever reason, despite the fact that I was consciously holding the blender cover down, the soup erupted with enough force to fly over much of the kitchen ... and much of me might I add. It didn't hurt ... much ... at first. Cuppa thought that I should remove my splattered shirt, but I demurred ... unfortunately.

You see, I'm a rather sequential, task-oriented person, and, right then, my task was to blend the soup. After that I would be only too happy to attend to the next task: the removal my shirt. But, as the blender kept going, the scalding ingredients began to soak through my shirt and onto my skin. Frankly, it began to hurt ... quite a bit. Did I stop? Of course not. Stupid question really. Stay with the task at hand AC. Your present task is to blend. Only then may you move onto your next task: attending to your burning flesh.

Of course, a sizeable portion of my lower left arm was rather red by the time that I divested myself of my scalding garments. And it did smart, quite a lot, for an hour or so. I would have gone, should have gone, to the pharmacy to purchase some soothing and healing balm, but, of course, I had to eat some soup first. It was the next bullet on my sequenced list after all.