Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I was 10 and helping out at a church pancake supper, serving and clearing people's plates. I was picking up a matron's plate when the butter knife, completely covered in maple syrup, slipped off the plate and landed squarely in her cleavage.

About twenty years ago my wife and I were entertaining a small group of friends and I was grilling a boneless leg of lamb. We were enjoying cocktails as the lamb finished on the grill. I went back into the kitchen to get a platter and while I was gone our little terrior Lucy snatched the juicy leg off the grill. Upon my return Lucy looked up at me with a lamb soaked but guilty look. She had never done anything like this before. It must have been the lamb as this was my first attempt at grilling this critter. Everyone had a good laugh and I made a dash to the butcher shop for some steaks.

We had about 12 people over on a Sunday and I was going to make Chicken Marsala, I had a family size pack of boneless chicken breasts sitting on the counter which was 98% thawed and was just awaiting me to start cooking. While I was wining everyone up and passing around an antipasto I went back in the kitchen for a towel. Our 8 month old mutt had grabbed the pack and had managed to eat about half of it and drag it all over the floor. I quickly and quietly sent the hubby to the store to rebuy the chicken but I was freaked out, she had never done anything like that before.

We'd managed to find enough morels for four people, and invited some friends over. Heated the skillet, melted the butter, threw in the mushrooms (which we'd washed)--and out came the ants. We scooped out what we could, but we weren't sure we had them all. So we added a teaspoon of dried herbs, which shriveled up and disguised whatever ants were left.

Thanks for all of the hilarious comments to my post! I am sure each of us can look forward to a lifetime of similar memorable moments!

During a dinner party, I accidentally pushed the oven cleaning button on the second oven that I was using to keep things in until we were ready to sit down. I didn't notice until it started smoking and everything had been ruined. I had no idea how to turn it off (you can't) and the oven was locked, thankfully my boyfriend thought to switch off the breakers... so embarrassing.

Many years ago, my husband and I invited friends and relatives to a dinner at our home. We planned many dishes: appetizers, salads, and an entree of roast deviled chicken. The dinner was very important to us: we were asking for their support of our soon-to-be-launched catering business. Everything was going fine until in the rush of the moment I added a big measure of water to the roasting chicken in the oven: the pan was dry and I wanted drippings. Unfortunately, the pan was Pyrex and exploded! No one was hurt (except the chicken), but we ended up taking our guests out to dinner: not the best scenario for pitching your cooking skills! Our business did come to be, no thanks to that presentation...(I also know all the other reasons not to add water to a roasting bird now...)

thought it was time to revive this thead; another one got me thinking how young I started cooking unsupervised...

I started wearing glasses in 6th grade, but was never happy how I looked in them. It wasn't until high school that I wore them at home, I figured I already knew where everything in the house was. So this was sometime between then.

I had made a chicken stir fry for my parents, and they commented on the fresh lemon seasoning I had used. I didn't think about the fact that I hadn't put any kind of citrus in until my dad's tongue started to go numb, followed by mine and my mother's. I had grabbed the Lemon Pine-Sol instead of the Mazola oil - in a certain size they come in the same bottle! We called poison control and he assured us that a few tablespoons between the 3 of us didn't warrant medical attention and made a point to tell me to always cook with my glasses on from now on.

I always did after that! Just after I met my husband, though, I brushed my teeth with antibiotic cream, so he got me LASIK for my 30th birthday this year. It's safe to eat at my house again!!!

8 yrs old. I was in charge of the mashed potatoes for the Sunday dinner. Company coming -- had to make it good. My first ever anything in the kitchen. I used 1 CUP of salt rather than 1 tsp. HORRID. 30 years ago and my family STILL won't let me bring potatoes to dinner.

I doubt I can come even close to the cleavage [silver]wear... but here's my worst food moment:

For several weeks last year I attended class with my daughter.

One morning just before school the girl was putting the milk back in but pushed out the Palek Paneer (spinach & Indian cheese) leftovers. I had tried this one shelf stable brand but it was icky. I'd put it in the fridge because that's where things go to rot; at which time I can feel okay about tossing them but, until then I try to convince myself I'll be eating it soon. So, with the child's help there was green stuff everywhere including all up and down her legs just before we needed to leave and we were already running late. But really, we had to clean it up, and we did, but what a comedy of errors. I pulled the garbage out so it would be right next to her and after I did that she went over and dropped things under the sink not realizing the garbage was no longer there. In the car I told her she'd done me a favor because I hated that spinach. Will I ever stop blowing her mind away?

For lunch while she was in math class, I ran down to our store that has a great organic deli section with fresh hot food that changes seasonally, each day's selections even depending on what the farmers bring in that morning. It was a special delight to find out what veggies they were having everyday. Apparently that day though there was a bounty of mushrooms as everything had them in it so there was nothing I wanted.

Anyway, no hot veggies for me so I put together a salad, putting some bleu cheese dressing in a little plastic container. Then I went to the check out lines because the one by the food was backed up. I managed to get behind some lady apparently confusing the store for the bank because she wanted something like $25 in ones and a roll of quarters but handed them $40 which the checkout girl couldn't conceive that meant $5 left over so she was short-circuiting. I was about to move to the next line but someone scooped it before I could so I was freaking a bit on the time left to get back before 4th period ended.

Finally, my turn and I stepped forward. That's when the dressing container flung itself out of my hand over to the next checkout I had wanted to jump to, up against this lady's shoes where it exploded and went all up and down her legs and shoes. In slow motion no less. It doesn't look like much when it's in one of those little containers but when it's on a person it seems like so much more. I'm just grateful she was wearing a skirt rather than pants because I would have destroyed those. It was awful. I'm still horrified.

She was really nice about it but it's not like I could help her get clean; that would have been completely creepy. She said, "It's not like things such as this happen everyday." at which point I told her about the spinach not 4 hours hours earlier.

Thanks for reviving the thread. I'd missed it earlier and this gave me a bunch of giggles. Great stories. :)