Hot Damn

Shortly after my last post on Thursday, I had a little kitchen accident.  You see, my son ended up staying home from school sick.  Totally messing up the whole day as I was suppose to go for my post op checkup. 

I rescheduled my appt and took to caring for him.  He wanted hot tea and so I put a pan of water on the stove and made him tea.  Problem is, I set the pan back on the burner and forgot to turn it off.  About 20 mins later I smelled something weird coming from downstairs.  I immediately realized it had to be the pan!

What little water leftover from tea making was completely gone and the bottom of the pan had black and grey marks. Great I thought, it's ruined and I'll have to throw it away.  Normally this wouldn't have bothered me.  I have even been looking around at buying extra pots to have for cooking since I usually seem to need more when I am making meals. 

It's just that the pots I have are from my childhood.  They were given to my mother at her wedding shower to my stepfather when I was 4.  And they are the only few things I have of hers since she's died.  She gave them to me years ago when I moved home from college.  They are wonderful, heavy duty stainless steel.  I did ruin (boiling away water again!) the tiny pot a year ago so to lose another really made me upset.

I had run hot water in the pot to try to cool it down so I could possibly stop the metal from becoming ruined even further.  Then I googled help on saving it.  There were a lot of tips and I tried them all!  Mostly I simmered baking soda and lemon juice (from concentrate) on medium high heat replacing the water every so often when it turned dark grey.  I did that for a couple hours and would scrub with a brillo pad every so often in between changes.  Almost all of the marks came off and then I remembered how my mom used white toothpaste to polish metals.  So I grabbed the paste from the bathroom and started wiping.  And that really helped!  For one, it took away the lingering smell from the pot and a lot of the remaining burn.  Now my pot looks presentable and usable.  The pot didn't warp and my husband didn't even notice anything when he used it later to make ice tea (I am too embarrassed to tell him haha).  The outside looks perfectly fine and while the inside may never sparkle and shine as before, I can save it and hopefully pass it down to Paige. 

Yay internet!!  Though now I am setting the kitchen timer when I boil water!