Truly horrific First World Problems in the Kitchen: what really gets us boiling!

May 31st, 2012

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This blog is written from a dark place. There’s a lot of rage in it. A lot of pain. Call it a primal scream … from the kitchen.

It’s the hub of the home so naturally the kitchen is a place where First World Problems arise … (oh, for the uninitiated “First World Problems” are apparently petty but actually deeply traumatic things suffered in the developed world on a daily basis).

Things go wrong, things irritate us – and the list of inanimate objects we rant at furiously is long and varied.

We’ve taken a sample of opinions from the Appliances Online office to find our pet kitchen peeves. So we submit for thy reading pleasure, in no particular order of preference, things that make us go “d*mn you f**&#g piece of s*t you will f&&%g die for your insolence”, pertaining to…

• Sandwich presses:

The cheese sandwich you grilled last Saturday night at 2am comes back to haunt you next time you try and use the sandwich press. There’s now burnt cheese stuck to the grill plate and it’s got a tighter hold on that sucker than a Turkish wrestler. Short of trying to patent this thick crust as an industrial adhesive, we don’t have many solutions – just get out the sledge-hammer and show it who’s boss.

• Fridges:

This is a major one. Due to a fridge’s inability to throw out things passed their used-by date by itself, it’ll often be heaving with stuff you’re afraid to look at, let alone touch.

….This means:

– When you open the fridge door, something invariably falls out. That’s right, and it’s probably one of the last things in there that’s vaguely edible. In a breakable jar.

– There are odour issues. Something up the back, possibly mayonnaise or that mango and date chutney you opened once and never touched again because it tasted so nasty, is starting to smell like a chemical weapon Saddam Hussein used in the Iraq-Iran conflict during the 80s. Ironically, this is when the fridge was last cleaned out.

Our advice: best to leave whatever it is well alone. You’re only hope is that, by waiting another decade, it’ll reach some kind of tipping point – where either it starts smelling better or removes itself of its own volition.

– Your other consolation is that, if you were share-housing the reality would be much, much worse. The mexican standoff over general maintenance will turn any fridge into a bio-hazard. And if it’s not a frost-free fridge, the freezer will be an ice-cave fit only for half a packet of peas, a few bread crusts, and that Lean Cuisine (Chicken Korma) that belonged to someone who left the house in 1998.

• Ovens:

There are a couple of scenarios familiar to us.

– Firstly, the old chestnut where time is crucial – that’s where you’ve bought all the ingredients, done all the prep, and you think you’re all set to impress, say, the special lady in your life. Then you realise you’ve forgotten to pre-heat the oven, dammit! Our solution: get some Thai food home-delivered and tell Mum, “you were too tired to cook because you had such a busy day at work.”

– You get the temperature settings wrong while baking. Result: blackened crust, mushy luke warm insides. Well done, you masterchef.

• Kettles:

It’s first thing in the morning, and naturally you need tea, because there’s nothing like a good ol’ cuppa to chase away the howling demons of hell that frolic around your arm-clock. You fill the kettle with water and turn it on – both actions, at the time, seeming like herculean exercises in will-power and endurance.

While it’s boiling, go to the bathroom to do what you gotta do. Come back and pour the boiling water into the cup with yer bag of English Breakfast. Realise something’s wrong … oh that’s right, it’s stone cold. Why? Because someone had turned the kettle off at the power-point. Brilliant. Solution: proceed to heat the kettle using the power of your own rage.

• Toasters:

The piece of plastic junk you inherited from your parents which does nothing on setting 1 – and burns everything to volanic ash at setting 2.

• Sinks:

For some reason almost always filled with dirty dishes soaking in scummy water. Who puts them there? Oh that’s right – you did, yesterday. Dammit, yesterday’s you was such a jerk!

• Frying pans on the cooktop:

You’re treating yourself to a fry-up on a Sunday morning – it’s all going well: except the bacon is hissing and popping so much that to avoid being blinded by flying boiling fat, you have to use welder’s goggles.

• Kitchen bins:

Where to begin with this most obnoxious of household objects? It’s a toss-up between the way it always seems to be on the verge of spilling over or that sickly puddle of brown water which always seems to gather at the bottom. It’s enough to make want you want to forgo the whole trash-receptacle thing and just wallow in your own filth. To hell with it!

• Cockroaches:

Guaranteed to annoy. It’s not just that they’re dirty and creepy. It’s the way they pop up, seemingly out of nowhere, mandibles cheerily waving hello at you, as if to say, “Hey douchebag, we love what you’ve done to the place – it’s really nice and filthy.”

Of course there’s loads more – everything from accidentally standing on food stuffs, to mistakenly kicking things under the fridge so you can’t get them – but frankly we’re too angry to continue. I’m going to a bucket on my head and have some quiet time.