Monday, April 29, 2013

Suicidal kitchen appliances, alien life forms and why I'm never making cake pops again

This story of suicidal kitchen appliances and alien life forms is sponsored by The Good Guys Kitchens. Please keep reading - I need your help!

As domestic goddesses go, I make a pretty good blogger.

I’m about as domestic as the average not-very-domestic-thing*.

I’m not good at keeping my house neat or organised, and I’m not at all handy.

However, those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that I like to cook.

I’m not too shabby at it and I have some nifty kitchen appliances. The kitchen is my favourite room in my house.

I’m one of those annoying people who tweet photos of food they’ve created, like this gorgeous cake:


Or like these wonderful cake pops:


Yes, those are mutant cake pops and they’re in the bin, where they belong.

I tried to melt the poorly-named "melts" in the microwave, as instructed. Suddenly the microwave started making pop, hiss and bang noises, accompanied by a suitably dramatic light show.

Cake pop melts don’t melt on the stove top, even over a bowl of gently boiling water. False advertising if you ask me.

White ones turn to concrete.

Blue ones start to melt, then turn to weird blue glue that won’t attach itself to the outside of a cake pop. No matter how hard you scream, cry or swear.

I couldn’t give those splodgy blotchy blue monstrosities to other people’s children, so in the bin they went. Next to them went the red melts which no doubt would have melted perfectly on the stove top but by that time I was ready to murder the inventor of the cake pop with one of the handy plastic cake pop sticks supplied so helpfully in the kit.

Breathe.

The new, firework-free microwave** is now installed and I’ll be checking the state of mind of all my kitchen appliances regularly to avoid any more suicidal mid-baking-disasters.

It makes me wonder about the rest of my kitchen. We live in a hundred-year-old-house that’s starting to fall apart.

I am as handy as I am domestic, and our house needs some love.***

The last person who renovated our house did it all themselves - clearly without the help of experts like The Good Guys Kitchens. Witness the lack of ventilation under the house. Witness the non-existent ground drainage. Witness the inexorable progress of our house down the hill on which it was built. Oh the humanity.

Thanks to ill-advised DIY renovations, despite keeping my house clean, a new life form is growing on our kitchen bench top. The idiot person who renovated our house used very poor varnish on the wood**** and it’s deteriorating. The varnish is now sticky, so when you pick paper an appliance your hand something up off the bench, nine times out of ten you’ll find it’s fused in place for posterity. Next to the sink, water permeates the wood and has created Fred:


Fred is a new alien life form. Or maybe mould.

Whatever he is, he’s big and ugly and growing each day. At this rate our house will soon be nothing but a large brown stain with a car port.

We need a kitchen renovation. In the meantime does anyone know how to remove Fred? 

Failing that, does anyone speak alien mould?

What renovation disasters have you seen?

* I was thinking maybe a big cat, like a Cheetah. Although apparently they’re actually the biggest of the small cats. I know they’re the only large cat that purrs, because I’ve heard one. Then I realised a Cheetah is fast and I am built for comfort, not speed, and then this whole comparison thing broke down. 

** So far.

*** And new drainage, floorboards, weatherboards, cupboards and bench tops. Love is definitely not all you need.

**** Yes badly-sealed wooden bench tops in a wet area. I don’t. Even. What? 

16 comments:

  1. Fred looks scary. I'd be running if I were you, or cutting him out and chucking him in the skip.

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  2. Our whole house is a renovation disaster & being married to a pedantic perfectionist who is a carpenter means this is not a good thing. For the first 3 or 4 years everytime he spotted something wrong he would fly into a rage. Like using weatherboards as skirting boards & not bothering to attach them to the wall..because..well because. A bathroom (since renovated) that had a shower with no base & just a screen around it. All good if the floor is sloped TOWARDS to the drain hole & not the kitchen. A 'courtyard' that consisted of REALLY FUCKING SMALL STONES & tropical plants - in Tasmania. Not to mention the assorted shit that washes out of the soil that previous owner buried..toys, bottles, cans, ASBESTOS SHEETING - this last one sets my blood boiling everytime I find a piece. I swear one day I'm going to hunt the bastard down & shove it down his throat.
    Oh & dodgy electrical work.
    As for Fred..my recommendation is bicarb & vinegar. The trick to protecting it further, if you can get it off, is to then coat it with a paraffin/beeswax mix. Seals & protects. Good luck!

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    1. Thanks lovely! And oh my good lord re the asbestos!

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  3. Great - thanks, mrsds.... My first thought was vinegar to (kill) remove Fred... and paraffin + bees wax will def make a better sealant :-)

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  4. When our poly got sticky I sanded it off and re-coated with floor varnish, the theory goes that if I could walk on it then it should handle tabletop duties.
    Getting rid of mould such that it doesn't come back, without damaging the wood is out of my league.

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    1. Oh no we are not handy. We'd probably sand it down to a paper thin layer! LOL

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  5. Agree with the vinegar for removing Fred. I've used it on material and it works wonders. My house was part of a building scheme to help young people get into the workplace...let's just say it shows.

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    1. I didn't know you could use it on material, thanks TC! xx

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  6. Salt mixed with lemon juice is supposed to be good for killing mould too. I am rubbish at baking, always appreciate other people's efforts though :)

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    1. Don't worry my love when we finally see each other IRL baked goods will be the last thing on our agenda. ALL THE WINE. x

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  7. Am afraid I'm no help at all when it comes to cooking and baking. I cook the same meals ALL of the time and don't even own dishes for baking. Recently I made a brownie packet mix and realised I only had the tin I use for cooking my oven chips, so had to stuff the tin with baking paper to make it smaller. It (ahem) sort of worked.....

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  8. Hilarious! I really shouldn't be laughing at your misfortunes but be comforted by the fact that it has given me joy. :) I'm new to your blog and looking forward to more.

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