Thursday, June 10, 2010
Could It Happen To You?
By Linda Costello
Explore the diaries of daily life with large birds.
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Photos courtesy of Linda Costello
Murphy the green-winged macaw enjoys cooking from Linda, who is (almost) always very careful in the kitchen.
JJ, Linda's blue and gold, knows that everything in his house centers around a happy atmosphere for pet birds.
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Days, weeks, months and even years can go by while we happily spend days caring for and playing with our beloved parrots. We spend lots of money on food manufactured and packaged especially for them. We cook for them and we buy expensive toys that they sometimes demolish in just one day. But the one thing I am going to focus on in this blog is the cooking.
We've all been warned about the dangers of nonstick cookware, such as Teflon. Some of us heed the warnings — especially after reading of some of the sad experiences of other pet owners.
Others take the attitude that,"I'm always careful when cooking," or, "I would never let the pot boil dry!" Some people even find it difficult to get rid of that one Teflon-coated omelette pan or whatever other favorite pan they have.
The point is: No one is immune from being distracted, even if it's just for a moment or two when the phone rings or the door bell chimes. Sometimes, it takes only one lapse in good judgement for your world to come tumbling down. Some people (like me) may sit down at the computer, for a second, to check something and loose all track of time.
Well, that's exactly what happened to me this afternoon.
My husband came up with the idea for me to make stuffed green peppers for supper.
"Yum!" I said, "But I need a few things at the store." So I made up my list and off he went to get the missing ingredients.
I decided to get the ball rolling while I waited for him to get back, so I measured the rice and water ratio, put the water in the pot and turned on the unit. I sat down to check a few emails, then decided to reply to "just a couple" of them.
When Ray came back in the door, I got up out of my seat. As I turned around my nose was greeted with a strange metal burning smell. Oh no!
I finally remembered the pan I had cooking on the stove. I ran to the kitchen, grabbed it off the unit, threw open all the windows I could reach quickly, in seconds it seemed. I ran upstairs to get the fan to sit in the kitchen entry in an attempt to pull any of the smell, that may have wafted through the air and into other rooms, out from the rest of the house, blowing the air toward the opened door and windows to keep it from infiltrating the whole house. Even though I don't use Teflon or any nonstick coated pans, I envisioned my birds dropping from their perches. What a scary thought! This is one good example of why, as a precaution, I don't keep my birds in the kitchen while cooking.
Hug your birds and learn a lesson from me.
Luckily, I have learned my lesson (thankfully not the hard way as some people have) from what could have been a tragedy and there will be no more multi-tasking for me - especially while I am cooking!
Have you had any close calls? If so, you can share them in the comments section below? We can all learn from each other's experiences.
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Could It Happen To You?
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