[Sca-cooks] burns and crabs

[Stephanie Ross]

<One of my former coworkers was carmelizing sugar and was in a rush.
Managed to knock the handle of the pan and it coated the inside of her left
arm from wrist to elbow. She had to have another cook peel it off and then
went to the ER. Back doing evening service and has a very badly scarred arm
2 years later.>

Seems to me that peeling the sugar off her arm is what caused the bad
scarring. I would have run for the nearest sink and ran cold water over it
- would have dislodged the sugar and given my arm some relief!

<I got grease burns while working the line at a steakhouse one Friday
evening in the middle of the rush. Some knucklehead knocked something in
the deep fryer by accident and I got a nice smattering of droplet 
shaped blisters up my arm and hand. I had the manager get me a gallon
pitcher of ice water to dunk my arm in when I could for the rest of the
evening.>

Next time grab a cut lemon and rub it on your arm. Will cut the grease and
keep it from blistering. Or you could have used iced vinegar to soak your
arm in. The acid in both the lemon and vinegar stops the blistering
process. One of my very first jobs, a kid dropped his tongs in the fryer
and reached in after them. The manager soaked his arm in iced vinegar until
the ambulance arrived. The child had NO scarring. I was a believer after
that, and I tell everyone in the restaurants I work in. In fact, I was a
dumb-ass once and reached into a very hot oven without a mitt, pulling out
the rack with my bare hand. Seared the pads of my fingers. I soaked them in
vinegar. After about 20 minutes, the pain of the burn went away. The next
day, I had callouses where there should have been blisters and didn't get
one blister! It's the same principle as using vinegar or tea on sunburns to
keep from blistering.

About crabs - When I lived in southern Maryland, I picked up a bunch of
"Crabmaster Kits" that contain a wooden shell-cracker shaped like a pestle,
a tiny oyster knife, a piece of thin clear plastic tubing for pushing the
meat out of the legs, and a pair of rounded-end scissors, all in a handy
zippered pouch that even included written instructions!!

Aislinn

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without
civilization in between. - Oscar Wilde 

Et si omnes ego non.