The One About Unexpectedly Making A Noteworthy Mess In The Kitchen

/ Ally Bean

Don’t do this.

I can’t say for certain that I created my worst kitchen mess ever, but I can say that what I did was so far beyond my usual kitchen messes that it is worthy of note.

And belongs on my Top Five Biggest Kitchen Messes Ever List.

If I had such a list.  But I don’t.

Here’s what I did. 

I got the wok out and put it on the cooktop because I was getting ready to stir-fry some vegetables for dinner. 

Then I grabbed the canola oil from the shelf and opened a new 32 fl.oz. bottle.  

Made of flimsy plastic.

I went to pour some oil into the wok but I lost control of the lightweight, squishy, poorly designed, this-is-really-not-my-fault bottle.  Thus I ended up pouring canola oil:

  • into the wok; 
  • onto the cooktop; 
  • onto the granite counter beside the cooktop; 
  • into the utensil crock filled with spoons and spatulas sitting on the granite counter; and last but not least 
  • onto and into the wooden knife holder, filled with knives, sitting beside the utensil crock filled with spoons and spatulas sitting on the granite counter beside the cooktop.

Say good-bye to half a bottle of oil.

As you can imagine the spilled 16 fl. oz. of oil immediately began to spread across the cooktop and the granite counter, dribbling down the front of the cabinets, leaving puddles of oil on the floor.  

This, you expect.

And, of course, the oil got inside the utensil crock, pooling in the bottom, where it stayed until I washed the crock and everything in it.  

Again, this is what you expect. 

But the big surprise is that once the oil covered the outside of wooden knife holder, it quickly oozed into the knife slots.  There, in an instant, the oil was absorbed into those slots in such a way as to make the wooden knife holder, that suddenly had begun to smell like mold, about as un-washable and un-usable as anything I’ve ever seen destroyed in a kitchen.

This sort of mess I did not expect.

So there you have it, another story in which my life is not as idyllic as one might hope.  A story, in fact, that lends itself to me asking you a question, my gentle readers:

What’s the biggest cooking &/or baking mess you’ve made in the kitchen?

133 thoughts on “The One About Unexpectedly Making A Noteworthy Mess In The Kitchen”

  1. One Thanksgiving, I made my first homemade pie. I had always been told that I baked the best cookies, so I assumed a pie would be a piece of cake. I was so wrong! When my father made the first cut, a river of chocolate oozed. He said, “I think we’ll have to eat this using a straw.” We nicknamed it the “Straw Pie.” Since then, I bring store bought pies.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Jill, laughing here. Pies are tricky, as you found out. Straw Pie sounds unique to me, but I admire your spunk in trying to make it. I used to bake pies but I now buy them. Life is too short for that kind of stress.

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  3. My latest, greatest kitchen calamity came while I was cutting vegetables, perhaps for a stir fry like you Ally Bean, although I might have simply been planning to roast them also. I do remember it was some dish that I was supposed to share with others.
    Using a VERY sharp knife and trying to cut something rather uneven and easily rolled I (and the knife) slipped and went in opposite directions where that sharp edge sliced into the tip of my finger. Blood began dripping all over those wonderful vegetables, onto the cutting board, onto my counter, down onto the floor…you get the idea, while I was trying to tear off paper towels to clamp over my hand.
    It took ages to get the bleeding to stop and during my “apply pressure and elevate hand” wait I realized just how much I had bled into and onto my food. I decided to check bleeding status and realized that I had cut deeply enough that I had sliced a chunk of tissue from my fingertip. It was hanging on by a thread so without another thought, while looking at my ruined dinner, I plucked off the hanging piece of finger tissue, flicked it onto the ruined veggie pile, applied new towels and pressure and walked away to figure out how to bandage up my finger.
    Later, wearing a rubber glove to keep my new, cumbersome bandage dry, I returned to the bloody scene of the crime to toss out the inedible food along with finger tip, and scrub down my kitchen.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Deb, THAT IS AN AWFUL THING TO HAVE HAPPENED. I can understand how it happened and I can imagine how much blood there was in your kitchen. However I cannot imagine me being as calm about the fingertip wound as you were.

      Oh gracious, I’m glad you can look back on kitchen fiasco and share your story, but I am so sorry that it happened to you. Your finger is ok now?

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      • Oh it’s fine Ally Bean, thanks. Just one of those awkward places for an injury that was really difficult to bandage and keep dry. I had a few moments of pondering on the ability to salvage any of the veg, but decided that wouldn’t be a very good idea! Tossing all that food bothered me more than the injury 🙂

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  4. Oil is the worst! Everything will be slick for days…
    As for my worst? I put a pot of water on to boil then went into the office to check the computer. You know where this is going right? I forgot the pot, boiled all the water out and melted it to the glass top burner. Smoke? My kitchen looked like an opium den. Needless to say we had to buy a new stove…

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  5. Biggest kitchen mess? Not me, my son did it – by trying to micro-wave a duck that he shot. Think exploding duck. Think of the fine haze of exploding duck covering everything in the kitchen. Think of the lingering stench of exploding duck.

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  6. We hosted a 50th birthday barbecue for a friend. I made…. a lot of baked beans. Like, perhaps a 50-gallon drum of baked beans. Anyway, party is a success with many yummy leftovers, including one giant Tupperware thing of the baked beans. A big, square sucker. While stacking stuff in the fridge, I dropped that container full of beans, oh, probably four feet straight down, causing the lid to fly off the top and launching beans EVERYWHERE. Seriously, EVERYWHERE. Wiping baked beans off the walls late at night, more than a little drunk, was not my idea of fun. EVERYWHERE. We found traces behind the fridge months later. Oh, the beanamity!

    Liked by 1 person

    • bnzoot, that is hilarious and so, so, so much like something I’d do. Cold tomato-y beans can be so slippery. And squeeshy. And staining. And messy. And to have to clean them up after a good party, oh– the injustice of it all. I have no doubt that the beans went EVERYWHERE.

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  7. No disasters to share.
    Our kitchen is always an oasis of calm . . . 😉

    Cleaning the oil residue from inside the popcorn popper is challenging enough. Cleaning 1/2 a bottle of oil from kitchen accouterments would have me tossing in the towel.

    But it was NOT your fault! Those plastic bottles are far too flimsy.

    Liked by 1 person

    • nancy, the oily mess was just about impossible to clean up. And the knife block was a goner within seconds of me losing control of the bottle. I can only shake my head and laugh about this mess… while telepathically sending evil thoughts toward the manufacturer of those flimsy bottles. 😒

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  8. I can relate to your oil story because oil bottles, especially oils like cannola, are packaged in a container that is slightly thicker than saran wrap. I did the same thing with dish soap (those bottles are getting thinner too). There is a slip and slide to them as there is always soap on the outside (at least in our house). Most of my big disasters involve forgetting a major component of a recipe like the bananas in a banana cake or chips in chocolate chip cookies. I have become creative with titles and explanations that involve mysterious ingredients that disappear when cooked.

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  9. Yeah, so what is with those flimsy oil bottles anyway? Your puddles of oil streaming everywhere sounds awful, but seems to have yielded a life-saving alertness to the mold present (but not detected) in that knife-block holder…ick and double ick.
    As for my worst mishap? Many of us have had experience with burning the beans while forgetting them as they simmer all day on the stove…well one time, I actually ‘burned the bean pot’…I had forgotten them for so long that when I remembered to check up on them, the thick-bottomed pot had melted into the drip pans on our stove (older electric type) and fused in some parts of the electric coils…While cleaning it all up – I discovered a lovely lump of melted bean pot metal in the shape of a slug complete with head erect and antenni alert – it holds place of honor on my kitchen window sill wherever we live as a reminder that beauty (?) does indeed come from the ashheap of life.
    😉

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    • Laura, yours is a wonderful story of disaster leading to redemption[?] or maybe more accurately, an awareness of human foibles. I can envision the mess your beans made in your stove, but at least you got a little something unique from the experience.

      I have no explanation about the whys of those stupid flimsy bottles, but I’ve learned my lesson from this experience. Approach those bottles with caution. They aren’t trustworthy.

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  10. Oh, yuck! So sorry, Ally. That’s a Kitchen Mess that will likely keep reminding you of its presence here and there. Sigh.

    I did what many tired new moms Of An Era did: left bottles and nipples on the stove to boil/sterilize and forgot about them. The water boiled away, and the plastic and silicone contents burned onto the bottom in an unsalvageable mess. New supplies AND a new pot had to be purchased.

    Liked by 1 person

    • nance, yes, oil is the mess that keeps on giving. 🙄

      I’d forgotten about when moms boiled bottles and nipples, but I have NO DOUBT that forgetting them on the stove made a mess of epic proportions. In retrospect, a good story to tell. At the time, much less so I’d guess.

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  11. The Abominable Kitchen Oil Spill must look a little milder, after metallic slugs and demolished ranges. My worst is either the time I left a can of soda in the freezer and it exploded when I opened the freezer door–luckily, there were no shrapnel injuries–or the time the baby was crying and I put a plastic bowl onto an electric burner that hadn’t cooled yet to go see what was wrong (nothing was wrong with her; she was just lonely). I didn’t have to replace the stove, just the burner. But the SMELL.

    Liked by 1 person

    • marian, you are so right! Compared to some of the stories I’m reading here, my oil spill [MESSY AS IT WAS] is small potatoes.

      I’ve wondered what would happen if you left a soda can in the freezer and now I know. Don’t do that, obvs. I’ve almost left a plastic bowl on a warm burner but caught myself just in time. I never thought about the odor from that kind of mishap, but now that I am thinking about it… YUCK!

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      • I was afraid of toxic fumes, so I opened all the doors and windows and put a fan in the doorway to air the place out. It was cold, but nobody was home but the baby and me, and I bundled us up until things were back to normal(ish). Then we went out and bought a new burner which I installed. When everybody got home from work/school and asked how the day was, I said, “Nothing special.” lol

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  12. Omg! Ok….I have a tiny kitchen. I was making Easter dinner, and I was doing the pea soup. A glass container in the cabinet over the stove fell, cracked, glass everywhere including pea soup which splattered everywhere. Had to clean and start everything over

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Oil is so hard to clean! Hope you could get most of it at least. If you remember those ranch dressing mixers, I was once shaking up the mayo, milk and package without having the lid firmly on. Vigorously shaking. Droplets and more of the greasy dressing went everywhere!

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Too many to count for me. But the most frustrating was when I dribbled pancake batter down the door to my stove. Some twit of immense proportion designed newer stove/ovens with double paned glass. There’s a space between the two and a vent type slot on top of the door. It took the stove repairman to fix it so I could wash the glass…and I still don’t understand why it was designed that way…he said it was more efficient. I said I thought the designer was an asshole. Now I’ve seen scrubber tools for cleaning between the glass, but I’m also extremely careful to avoid the door to the damned stove.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Melanie, our oven door is the same way. I agree it is a stupid design, but seems to be on all ovens anymore. I didn’t know there was a tool for cleaning it. I feel like your pancake experience is a cautionary tale that will prompt me to always, always, always double-check that I have the oven door closed before I start cooking on the cooktop.

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  15. If you really want to know, there’s a post over at m place called “I didn’t start the fire” = Known in our house as The Great Turkey Fire. Probably ’nuff said.

    I hate cleaning up oil – sorry for you on this one.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Oil everywhere!! Yuck!

    My worse was spilling the reddest spaghetti sauce I’d ever made. It splashed on the back door, oozed into the oven, and puddled on the floor. I didn’t have to throw anything away, though, so your disaster tops mine.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Donna, oil goes it own way and created one of the biggest messes I’ve made in years. Honey can do that, too. The knife holder is history, although I’ve found a plastic in-the-drawer knife holder at Target that I like better than the wood block. So, good news.

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    • Akilah, I blame this on the flimsy plastic bottle because it couldn’t be me who caused the problem, right? ☺️ Kitchen fires are scary. I’ll take an oily mishap over them.

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  20. Ugh! you will have to post about this again when you find more oil somewhere, you know that ALWAYS happens.! I have two experiences to share related to my sons. One when my oldest was probably 2.5 he dumped a bag of flour off the counter and then began to play in it. I have pictures of him and his brother covered in flour and both the tile and carpet covered in flour. The second happened in December. My youngest son left his lunchbox at school over a long weekend. There was a thermos of milk inside. But the worst was he had cross threaded the lid. My husband finally got the lid open… well really the lid finally popped open. it flew across the kitchen with curdled milk following the path. This was while my Christmas Lego village was set on my counter. There was curdled milk over the granite, the Lego village, the counters, the wood floor and even on the chair in the room next to the kitchen… this was GROSS

    Liked by 1 person

    • Sheryl, thank you. When things go wrong for me I figure that means I’ve got a good blog post to write. Although in this particular case I could’ve done without quite so much of the oil going everywhere… 🙄

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  24. I’ve had many kitchen disasters but one was “televised” on my blog. Grandson Curtis and I attempted to make flan, but we (me!) assembled the caramel and flan-ish mixture upside down. I still salvaged enough for the post, and the mixture didn’t taste half bad. Forgive me for spamming you with this link, but the live version is more interesting: http://marianbeaman.com/2018/08/29/real-men-wear-aprons-make-flan/

    There were also tense moments when grand-daughter and I made a rainbow cake.
    That’s another story. YOURS is hilarious! Disasters usually provide food for thought – ha ha!

    Liked by 1 person

    • marian, your post is delightful, in its own unfortunate way. We all try so hard, then are amazed when things don’t work out. Human nature, I suppose. Although as a blogger it’s the when things don’t work part of what I do that seems to make for the best stories. And messiest kitchens.

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  25. Wow! That was a doozy. I don’t think I can top it. I’ve had pots that boiled over and forgotten pots of oatmeal that burned. But really, the biggest mess I can think of is the ordinary but huge mess after a Thanksgiving dinner with the turkey carcass with lots of meat to pick off, the pans and baking dishes for cooking mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, and green bean casserole, the serving bowls and pie pans, and all the dishes we ate on. It makes me tired just to think about cleaning it up. But it’s January, and I probably won’t have such a big Thanksgiving dinner this coming November anyway.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Behind the Story, you’re right about the after Thanksgiving dinner mess. It is huge, predictable, and one that seems to be defeating after all that eating. [Hey look at that, I’m a rhyming Simon!] We used to spend what seemed like days cleaning up the kitchen after the meal, but I haven’t made roasted turkey + all the trimmings in years so I’ve been free from that mess. Thank goodness.

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  26. Not into the knife slots -nooooo. Easier to replace (and feel forever guilty about spending money when it was preventable – echoes of mom …..)
    Anytime I go in the kitchen, a mess results – just can’t do that neatly – but only the time a beer bottle sliced out of hand while being placed in panty resulting in flood all over panty items, shelves, wall, floor – not to mention slashing my ankle which refused to stop bleeding everywhere.
    It may be safer if I maintain the yard rather than the kitchen….

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    • Norm, this was an amazing mess. At first I just stood there staring in shock, but then I went into high gear with dish towels and paper towels, trying to stop the oil from spreading where I could. THEN I STARTED LAUGHING. I mean no one was hurt and I realized we’d be getting Chinese carryout for dinner– ‘cuz I sure as Hades I wasn’t going to be cooking anything.

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  29. Oh no! At least, I hope, no wildlife was harmed by this oil spill…

    I tend to not be very adventurous in the kitchen, so I can’t recall any disasters I’ve made myself. I will not forget the time my Mom had a grease fire on the stove that was pretty bad. While her and my Dad and possibly a sister or two were trying to quick think a solution before it turned into a fire department matter… I remember grabbing something and trying to beat the fire down. Which not only failed to extinguish the fire… but just spread out the flames across even more of the stove top. Finally my Mom grabbed a box of baking soda and flung it across the stove, which instantly put out the entire wildfire. When I moved out, my Mom bought me a box of baking soda to keep by the stove, and it’s still there. I have thankfully never had to use it yet…

    Liked by 1 person

    • evilsquirrel13, I know you’re supposed to throw baking soda on a grease fire, but when faced with an actual fire whether I’d remember that I don’t know. I’m glad that the fire department didn’t get involved and I’m glad to know that you have a box of baking soda just in case. Still that’s a scary thing to have happened.

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  30. Oh, dear. That’s one of those epic, slow-motion moments you had, wasn’t it? I’m so sorry. But how soon did the blogger in you realize this was going to make a great post? Instantaneously or an hour or two later? 🙂 The worst kitchen disaster I ever had was when I moved a boiling pot of pasta from the stove to the colander in the sink, but missed! The boiling, wet mess went all over the floor instead. My mother was visiting me at the time and saw it all happen. “No, really, Mom, I really can cook.” – Marty

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  31. I had to smile wide at your kitchen mishap. That is my worst kitchen nightmare, pouring oil from a flimsy bottle and somehow losing control. Those plastic oil bottles can really be soft and flimsy! And oil is a nightmare to clean up. As you documented, it can seep into any nook and crany. Wipe up oil and you’d still feel oil everywhere. Hopefully you got it all cleaned up 🙂

    One time I was cooking with a lot of turmeric. I completely forgot that turmeric stains, and stains really hard and bad. Left chicken turmeric fry up in the pot for too long, and it was a lot of scrubbing before the yellow stains came out. Thankfully none of that got on my clothes.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Mabel Kwong, this oil mess was a doozy. I thought I’d got it all cleaned up but noticed yesterday afternoon when the sun [finally] shined into the kitchen that there was a splash of oil on the cabinet door above the counter. I wiped it off, while muttering to myself about what a mess I’d made. Those flimsy plastic bottles are the worst.

      I’ve stained plastic mixing spoons with curry, so I can imagine how much of a stain turmeric leaves in a pot. It would take forever and lots of elbow grease to get that pot clean again. Good job not getting any of the stain on you!

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  32. Oh dear, oh dear! That is QUITE a mess.
    I have a reasonably large kitchen with great storage. I have three separate sections of countertop. One for baking, one all sink stuff, and then the area by the stove, where I tend to prep. Not a lot of room for more stuff in the prep area, so I bought one of those wall-hung magnetic bars for my knives which I feel may be a good choice for your knife block situation.
    The worst mess was after I made a polar bear cake with polar bear cupcakes for my friend’s baby shower. The entirety of it being fondant (not easy in Georgia) and the iced bear faces coconut. My kitchen looked like it snowed. Flour, sugar, coconut — all over everything. I was half tempted to bring in the shop vac to start. I bet it took me a solid hour to clean it up.
    Did you even get to enjoy your wok meal?

    Liked by 1 person

    • joey, I’ve seen those magnetic bars for knives, but never known anyone who has one. That’s a good idea. Thanks.

      I love the idea of a polar bear cake, but I can imagine how white [and faux snowy] your kitchen looked after you made it. I think that flour can be like oil when it comes to cleaning it up. It seems like you’ve got it all, then you discover you’ve missed a spot of it somewhere far removed from where the mess happened.

      After the mess we ordered Chinese carryout for dinner which [I assume] was made in a wok & we enjoyed it, so the answer to your question is yes. 😊

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  33. Ally, all I can say is someday they should make a motion picture comedy about this and maybe have it play out in slow-motion over an hour and a half—so much happened. Maybe you could call it “Oil Flew Over the Cooking Mess” or something like that. 😀

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  34. This incident explains why I live in fear of those oil containers. I had a similar incident with oil but it involved emptying a deep fryer. I shall never forget the horror of oil spilling everywhere 😳😱
    My sincere condolences.

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  35. It’s so meta because oil is slippery and it slipped out of your hands! Poor knife holder thingy. I hate when stuff like that happens.

    I can’t think of a huge mess that I made like that. The only kitchen mishap that popped into my head was the time I grabbed at a cookie sheet with the hand that didn’t have an oven mitt on it. OUCH!

    I don’t cook that much, thankfully. 🙂

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  36. Not oil. Nooo! That’s so horrible. I felt your pain, Ally. Well, gosh, the worst for me was one post-Thanksgiving day I was slicing leftover turkey and sliced my thumb along with the fowl. And I screamed foul language as a result. Ended up in the ER and earned some stitches. Had to throw out all the turkey as I had bled over the whole thing…what a waste. Hope you were able to get all that oil cleaned up!

    Liked by 1 person

    • Kate, your story is one I’ve feared doing myself. Those cooked birds are slippery little suckers. I’m sorry you ended up in the ER because no matter how small the wound + stitches may be, visits to the ER are anxiety-producing. And then there were no leftover turkey sammies to go back home to…that’s just unfair.

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  38. Ohhhhhh nooooooo!! Okay, I was feeling sorry for myself for spilling cream all over my counter, the floor, and the area rug this morning. Now I don’t feel as bad. So if it is any consolation, your spill helped my self-esteem. Not what you expected, I know.

    So sorry! What did you use to clean up the oil spill? (Now I’m thinking of ocean oil spills.)

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    • L. Marie, well you know I do what I can to help other people feel good about themselves, so I’m happy for you. Spilling a little cream? Pish posh, that’s nothing.

      I used Dawn dishing washing detergent with warm water everywhere that the oil went. Then I did it again. And again. Eventually I got all the oil spill and only had about five gazillion kitchen towels to wash in the laundry. 🙄

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  41. I thought I had you beat until I got to the knife block, but I tried making a soup that included dried beans–in a pressure cooker, which clogged and blew soup all over the ceiling. It was memorable.

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