I have burns on my hip. Let's just say that my cooking skills, while improving, still leave much to be desired. I'll start from the top.
I love to grocery shop. Granted, I can't go too often because of my propensity for purchasing unnecessary and, quite frankly, unaffordable items given my current budget. But I truly enjoy walking through the aisles filling my cart and looking at products. In the case of this story, I ended up with a nice, big, juicy steak for $4.
A barbecue is the only thing with which I have ever cooked a steak. Seeing as how the world is frozen right now, I didn't feel like firing up the ol' BBQ and standing outside in the dark and cold to cook. So, I inquired after a particularly culinarily (that's definitely not a word) talented co-worker as to how to prepare steak in the kitchen. I guess a bit of peanut oil - hot as hell - will get the job done. "Excellent," I thought. "This will be easy."
Oh yeah? WRONG.
Turns out, one only needs to use about a tablespoon of piping hot oil to successfully cook cow meat. I used enough to generously coat the bottom of the pan. Mistake #1.
One thing I was good at was heating said oil to excessively hot temperatures. As my mom later informed me while I recalled this experience to her, it's helpful to soak up the excess fluids on the steak prior to putting it into the pan of searing oil. Mistake #2. I took that bloody, dripping steak and practically tossed it into the pan.
INSTANT. REGRET.
The oil jumped straight out of the pan upon impact of steak. Along with dousing the pictures on the side of the refrigerator, my hip caught some of the oil splatter. Had I been practicing the behavior of a normal human, the oil probably wouldn't have reached my skin through my clothing, and I could have continued the process pissed off about newly acquired grease stains and instead focus on the mini grease fire on my burner.
However, I was cooking steak while wearing my swimsuit and light cotton pants. Mistake #3. The result was my screaming a string of profanities followed by rushing to the sink (ignoring the oil on the burner) and proceeding to splash cold water all over my right hip, leg, and basically entire lower right side of my body (and consequently creating a small lake on my kitchen floor). I ceased doing this when I thought to myself, "I'm clearly burned, but this doesn't even hurt at all! I can keep cooking my steak! Meat first! First Aid later!"
So I turned my attention to the now outwardly dark and crispy steak which was still blood red in the middle. I had turned off the burner when I saw the grease heating on the bright orange burner in order to prevent fire. In my haste, I'd actually just turned on the smaller front burner and left the back burner on "EXTREMELY HOT BURNING OIL" setting. Oops.
I managed to cook the steak to an edible form, though at this point I should have just the money on a steak from a restaurant. I sat down to eat it, and that's when my adrenaline must have worn off because YOWZA! Those burns stung! I was spotted with burns and looked like I had a skin disease. I also had grease all down the right side of my pants, so I proceeded to strip them off in the middle of my living room (remember, I'm wearing a swim suit so this is an entirely appropriate disrobing) and put cornstarch all over to help soak the oil out of the material.
It was then that I questioned myself. "Am I doing this right thing to get out grease? How do I treat these burns? Ice? Loose coverings?" I decided to consult my "Where's Mom Now That I Need Her" book. My mom gave me this when I went off to college. She must have known that I would get myself into a situation like this. I went to the table of contents.
Laundry... removing stains... oil... Got it. Nice work, me.
I flipped the page and what do you know? First Aid for burns is on the page right after removing oil from clothes! My helplessness and ridiculousness must have been a foreseeable event.
Only I would deep fry a steak in my swim suit.
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