Deep frying chips (fries to you Yanks). Oil boiled over, touched the stove element and caught fire. Got the local firefighters to come out - I had already isolated the power, the fire was extinguished quickly and they also blew the smoke out of the house. No real damage other than scorched enamel on the cooker, and I had to get rid of the pan.
HA! I was at my friend's house when her son did something similar. Dumped a bag of frozen fries directly in the hot oil. Of course, the bag had frozen water also ... which immediately and violently melted, causing the oil to boil over and catch fire. He was just about to throw water on the fire when I yelled at him to use the baking soda instead.
I had bought a small wood stove for heating and I thought I could also save on electricity by cooking with it. So I made a nice pot of stew with a long handle pot. When I thought the stew was done well enough I picked the pot up by the long handle to take to the kitchen when my wrist gave way; just totally went limp and my nice stew entirely spilled on the carpeted floor -a total loss after all that hard work of preparation. I don't know why but my wrist would occasionally collapse like that without warning, could be a nerve problem perhaps.
I don't know, that happened so infrequently and was not much of a problem so I never did think to talk to my doc about it. My wrist has been behaving ok now for the last few years.
My mom always put leftovers in tupperware. One year after Thanksgiving, she was warming up a bunch of the leftovers ... and couldn't figure out why she had gravy in two containers. So she combined them and warmed them up. Only after we started eating, did we discover that it was GRAVY and PUMPKIN PIE FILLING.
My mom will never live down that example of her culinary skills.
Slartibartfast 