..burnt potatoes.

This is the first entry in my blog devoted to the ironical use of "There's nothing worse than....." Of course, you can only use it when there are at least one million things in the world that are actually worse. Comments and suggestions are mandatory.  There's nothing worse than people who read a blog and don't make a comment.

There's nothing worse than burnt potatoes.  Burnt potatoes happen when you are boiling them and the water in the saucepan evaporates away. Is it because you have boiled them for too long or was it that you did not put enough water in at the start? However, once the potatoes are burnt the time for reflection has passed.  Now is the time to try and elimate the awful smell, then, if possible, to salvage the saucepan. The smell, okay that is possible, but making the saucepan usable - is usually not. Various housekeeping gurus have suggested using a range of home solutions, including vinegar, lemon, salt and bicarbonate of soda, but in my experience it is waste of time. If you were lucky, you were using an old saucepan that you kept meaning to throw away, but that's not normally the case. So that favorite pan that cooked the most amazing pasta sauce only the week before has to make the long journey down the garbage chute (no - we don't recycle in Sharjah).