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When I was 3 I accidentally poured boiling water on myself. I'm 55 now and still have the scars. A few months ago however I was taking a brisket out of the oven and it slid in the pan and splashed hot grease all over my arm. Even though I was wearing oven mitts I still have the scars!

I've had many. My hands are riddled with little scars. I also have one on my chest and my chin from an unfortunate bacon incident a few years ago. My most recent was a couple of weeks ago. Using an immersion blender, I somehow forgot that if you take the blender out of the soup without turning it off, you're gonna make a mighty all four walls splash of tomato and olive oil. Which I did. Sigh.

It took 10 years for my "catching brownie pan on way out of oven with forearm" scar to heal. mmm. burns.

A couple of weeks ago I was using my hand-held can opener, and it successfully opened about 2/3 of the actual can lid, making it clear it had no intention of going any further. I pushed down on the lid to make as much space as possible for its contents to pour out, and a big section of the sealed part of the lid popped off, jamming the razor edge into the webby part between my thumb and forefinger and punching a nice-sized hole in it.

Fortunately, I live next to a pharmacy, so I pressed a paper towel to the area, walked next door, approached the counter, presented my mangled hand, and said, "Okay, do I *really* have to waste all night and spend a fortune on this at the emergency room, or by any chance is there something you can give me to take care of this?" The pharmacist kindly sold me a bunch of stuff, and the wound has healed quite nicely.

And the pulled pork I was working on when the mishap occurred ended up being meltingly delicious :-).

A couple years ago, I was searing some beef shanks for some osso bucco and put them in the oil in the wrong direction and got a hot oil spray in my face. This was about a month or so before my wedding. Luckily, everything healed nicely and I didn't have any scars.

I've seared the tops of my hands many times on the heating element that hangs from the roof of the stove. I reach in to sprinkle cheese atop a dish during the last five or so minutes of baking and when reaching towards the back, ouch! (The rack doesn't pull out quite far enough for the back of the pan to be fully exposed, so I wind up reaching in to get to the back and I guess I'm too lazy to take the whole dish out, put it on the counter, sprinkle the cheese and put the dish back in the oven so I wind up with sear marks on my hand.) Sear marks look great on a burger but not so great on human flesh.

The other thing that has happened quite often is a can or bottle dropping on my foot when I'm rummaging through the pantry. Once it was a bottle of Worcestershire sauce that dropped from the top shelf. The bottle remained miraculously unbroken but my toe did not!

I attribute this to the distraction that comes with being sick, but I had a pot of boiling water and noodles on the stove for a comforting pot of mac 'n cheese. I picked up the pot to take it to the sink to drain it, and lost my grip. Poured boling water and noodles all over my right foot, and splashed some elsewhere on random body parts. I started dancing and backing up and everything went into slow motion as I saw the water and noodles spreading across the floor and heading towards me as I backed away, and of course the commotion got my husband and the two dogs heading my way and I was worrying that the dogs would try to eat the boiling hot noodles or would step into the water, and then my husband said, "What should I do?" And I gasped. "Cold Water!" because I knew I had to get my foot into cold water...so he starts rattling around in the cabinets looking for a container large enough for a foot while simultaneously trying to keep the dogs away from the hot water. I realized it was going to take him longer to find a container and fill it than I wanted to wait, so I ran to the bathroom hoisted my foot into the sink and started running cold water on it. The bad news was that I was wearing socks, and the sock of course kept the hot water next to my skin longer than if I had been barefoot. I took off the sock and peeled off a bit of skin at the same time....aaaargh!

Later that evening, I was soaking my foot in a container of cold water on and off, to relieve the pain, and one of my dogs came by and wanted to drink out of the bowl. Mmmmm....boiled foot soup! It was funny in a painful and stupid sort of way.

It was many months before I could put a shoe on that foot, but it healed without any scarring at all, which quite surprised me.

I have had various and sundry burn accidents too numerous to mention. The biggest lesson learned was the one when I was taught to respect my Wustof santouku. I was rushing to finish cutting blanched corn off the cobs, because after about four dozen or so, I was getting very bored with the task. I had a happy corn zipper, but felt the santouku was doing a much better job. Lesson learned: don't ever use uber-honed German cutlery when your attention is waning.

After many decades in the kitchen with no gashes that were not able to be mended by the aid of a band-aid butterfly, this was a slap of harsh reality. Three hours and several stitches later, I was home from the ER and the corn was still waiting. Feeling rather sheepish and quite chastised by fine German steel, I finished with nary a grumble.

Unfortunately, we were leaving on vacation in two days, so the stitches needed to come out while we were away. I could not hook up with a doctor at the resort where we were staying, so Mr. Grey Goose and I took out the stitches together. What can I say? I have a very low threshold for pain!

Holy Mackerel--there's more carnage here than in Mortal Kombat! I don't have the stomach to add any more blood, tears and gore. I'll just mention a scarred cornea from a bacon incident.

I have three ugly scars on my left hand from failing to remember that the racks in the oven are like hot lava and should be avoided when carelessly pulling out roasted potatoes from a 400 degree oven.

There are a few. The first that comes to mind was trying to slice a bagel with my best friend's new bread knife. As I was cutting, bagel balanced on edge, I thought to myself, "you know, this a bad idea. I could cut myself." I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say: knife -1, Jeni - 0.

I've broken several tempered glass pieces - once by cooking bacon on a glass plate (it shattered about a minute after the oven turned off; cooled too fast, I guess), once by adding water to a hot Pyrex baking dish (de-glazing doesn't work with Pyrex), once by trying to make soft mead in the microwave (I think there must have been a flaw in the bowl). These days, I'm a bit more careful with glass.

Also, cooking while topless is generally a bad idea.

awimmer, I too have small hands and the only pot holders I find comfortable to use are the Grabbitz (http://www.stevenslinen.com/grabbitz.html). I've found them in my local stores at times.

When we purchased our house about a year ago it came with an electric Frigidaire range that is now about 2 years old.....I have never had an oven that holds as much steam as this one!....I have to be very careful when I open the oven door as I have had a face full of steam more than once...not fun!

One winter I was flambeing a duck breast and wearing a cotton sweater. The sweater had a lot of little "hairs" sticking up. Somehow the "hairs" caught fire and the fire literally ran up my arms and around my back (my husband beat it out). I wasn't hurt and neither was the sweater (amazingly). But now I always roll up my sleeves!

Just the other day I was cutting up potatoes . . . let's just say I "missed" the potato and hit my thumb. Lovely little deep cut there now.

I cannot count the number of times I've burned myself w/ hot water. . . usually trying to make macaroni. You'd think I would learn!