I am abysmally clumsy. I regularly burn, cut and bruise myself – in the kitchen, mind you, not at parkour or rock climbing.
And whilst I’m fairly injury prone with sharp things, I seem to be much, much worse with hot things. Once I pulled a tray of cookies out of the oven, straight into my knee, branding myself with a lovely crescent shaped scar (I no longer bake in shorts). I’ve burnt myself with hot liquids, hot handles, hot trays and hot tools. I gave myself a really bad burn once trying to rescue a cordless phone that I’d dropped into a pot of curry.
In an attempt to do something about the burns, I went on a quest to find really good oven gloves. I tried silicone mitts, which are fine for some things (like pulling jam jars out of boiling water), but I desperately wanted moveable fingers.
I’d read about flameproof Kevlar gloves worn by racing car drivers, but they were both prohibitively expensive AND nearly impossible to find. In the end, my cousin-in-law Brian suggested welding gloves. The man is a genius, because these thick leather gloves are absolutely fantastic.
We found them at Gasweld for $6/pair and they have revolutionised my kitchen life. Because they’re long gloves, I no longer burn myself on the oven racks as I pull loaves of bread off their baking stones, or steam-burn my wrists when I lift the lid off a boiling pot of jam. They’re heat resistant, but not heatproof, which means they’ll get quite warm after a little while (especially if they get wet), but for the day to day “dealing with hot things” in the kitchen, they’re absolutely perfect.
We’ve had dark blue ones for a year now, and I’m about to replace them with the gorgeous red ones in the photo. Best $12 we’ve spend in ages!
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Another reason welding gloves are cool…read more….
Yeah, hand cuts are the worst because it’s hard to do anything without getting lots of gooey organic stuff in the cut until it heals. My worst cuts have come on backpacking trips where I just have to pour on a little Wild Turkey and hope for the best.
But what was that pumpkin soup recipe you were planning to make? A blended puree or one with chunks of flesh?
Sorry, I meant flesh of fruit, not a sarcastic reference to your bleeding hand!
Michael, the “chunks of flesh” comment made me laugh out loud! It was going to be a pureed soup, just with onions, chicken stock and maybe a little cream. From memory, I think we ended up with roast pumpkin for dinner that night instead.
I love my welding gloves….even more after reading all your exploits. I agree Pete’s engineering saved the day………why wouldn’t anyone want to get up in the wee morning hours….and drive? (I drive a lot, but I hate it. It does nothing for me, except get me to places on time!)
You are a genius, maybe set a challenge to your readers to find other items that are practical but initially designed for another purpose…
Hehe…actually, my cousin Brian is a genius… :)