Look, Mom burnt dinner!

Yes it’s true. This STEM mama burnt dinner. It wasn’t the first time and I doubt it will be the last. It was a simple menu planned, nothing fancy, just boiled potatoes. What went wrong? Um, I *might* have boiled them a bit too long?  Apparently when you boil water, the water goes from the liquid to the gaseous state – you think I would know that you can’t boil water indefinitely. I’m going to blame the stack of midterms that needed grading and not my poor cooking skills. Needless to say, the house stunk, the smoke alarms went off and dinner was well, dinner?

Oh and my poor pot. What did it do to deserve this? Nothing! I soaked it in the sink with dish soap for a week! And no matter what I did the remnants of my bad kitchen skills were solidly glued to the bottom. The outlines of potatoes past still remained.

This was never supposed to be an experiment. But I was desperate, and I figured science could save my pot!

Dryer sheets! They are the magic ticket! (I vaguely remembered reading something about this once). The cure to the alignment that I had inflicted on my poor pot. It was worth a shot, what did I have to lose?

The kids had friends over that day, and they were each asked what they thought of my pot. Asking their opinions were part of my punishment and my rehabilitation. Each kid added one dryer sheet to the pot filled with some (fresh) soapy water. Then we let the pot sit.

Would my pot survive? Could I wipe away the memories of this failed attempt at dinner?

And you know what? It worked. IT’S WORKED! MY POT HAS BEEN SAVED!

I was so excited I shared the video on social media. I never thought it would garner so much attention. But it became one of our most popular viewings. So I share our story here.

Hello, I’m a STEM Mama and yes, I burnt dinner.  But don’t worry the pot is OK! (Dinner not so much!)