This is not the first time I’ve produced a uniquely creative disaster, Josh Freed laments.
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It was a simple mistake, like most that lead to tiny first-world disasters.
I was cooking fish on a large oven sheet and pulled it out to see if was done.
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The burners were taken with pans, so I plopped the metal sheet down on a white plastic cutting board to check the fish — then slipped it back into the oven.
Shortly after, I asked my wife if she’d put the cutting board somewhere, but she looked puzzled.
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Just then, I saw and smelled blue smoke fumes emanating from the oven. When I peeked inside, there was white goo dripping on everything from the lower racks to the oven bottom.
I had found the (former) cutting board.
It had stuck to the bottom of the much larger metal cooking sheet I’d briefly placed on it. But I hadn’t noticed that when I placed it all back in the oven.
Yikes! We sealed the oven door and opened the windows and doors. But how to clean up this mess?
My wife just shook her head and left the room with that “not again” look on her face. This was not the first time I’ve produced a uniquely creative disaster.
There was the time I visited a friend’s cottage and used what I thought was a glass stovetop, like mine.
I was frying eggs when BOOM! — the glass stovetop exploded into a thousand bits, right in my face. I was terrified I’d been blinded, or scarred for life.
But when I felt my face there was no blood. Instead I was covered in tiny pieces of plastic, along with everything in the room.
The “glass stovetop” was actually a transparent plastic covering to be removed before cooking. It wasn’t easy to explain to my friend, but way better than being mutilated.
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Then there was the time I fiddled with someone’s fireplace vent, before we headed out — and returned to find smoke seeping from the windows, and firetrucks arriving outside.
There was no damage except to my reputation.
How about the complicated British Airbnb shower knob I misunderstood. I accidentally screwed it right off, so it fell on the floor, flooding the shower and bathroom, while I ran through the house naked, seeking tools.
OK, I’m sometimes a bit of klutz. You’ve heard of Mr. Fix-It? I’m Mr. Break-It.
So now here I was battling my latest micro-disaster: the plasticized oven.
By the time it cooled and fumes settled, the melted polyurethane plastic had hardened to rock, wrapping itself to the racks and oven bottom, like an octopus spraying crazy glue.
I couldn’t budge it with a butcher’s knife. So I turned to the nearest expert: the Internet. It’s always reassuring to look there, because just when you think you’re a unique idiot, you find countless people posting things like:
“What to do if polyurethane cutting board melts in oven.”
As suggested by several posts, I spent the next 90 minutes scraping away with a razored putty knife and liquified baking soda — and removed maybe two per cent. By then I was so tired I needed a nap … and I never nap.
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At this rate it would take 75 hours.
The next day, I contacted GE, the manufacturer, but they had no answers, except “DON’T TURN ON THE OVEN!” — the fumes might be poisonous.
Instead, I visited my favourite neighbourhood hardware store, where the father-son tag team loves to solve problems.
The son suggested baking soda again, and buying a bigger, sharper razor scraper. The dad disagreed, and said that might scrape the oven’s metal bottom and rust it out.
Instead, he suggested remelting the plastic, using a blowtorch on specific spots to limit the heat and fumes. But knowing myself, I said that might lead to other problems, including my hospitalization.
“Well, if you don’t like blowtorches,” said Dad, “try a hair dryer … you never know. Or turn on the oven and see what happens.”
He also suggested bringing in a “professional,” but couldn’t guess what kind. A mini-maid service with a blowtorch? Or a plastic-board-removing environmental spill specialist?
Fortunately, my wife solved the oven rack problem the next day with her own solution, one that oddly no one had suggested.
She poured boiling water onto the racks, over the sink, and gradually melted off the plastic. But there was no place for boiling water in our goo-coated oven bottom, without spilling it all over the floor.
So I went back to work with the small scraper, baking soda and my new tool, the hair dryer.
Two days time had healed things somewhat, since the plastic had hardened and become more brittle. Between the dryer’s heat and four more hours of hard labour, I pried and chipped until the oven was more or less clean.
Anyway, I’m happy to say we are back in the cooking business again, until whatever I break next.
I’ll be making a lovely recipe of chicken smoked à la polyurethane for dinner tomorrow.
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