My fucking SIL is just flat out dangerous. Against our better judgment we went to my brother's to have dinner yesterday. Last time we ate at their house we both got sick. We attributed it to my SIL's habit of keeping shit in the freezer for eternity.



Nothing ever goes bad in the freezer to her way of thinking. She will dig shit out of the freezer that has been in there for years and serve up. She gave us a brisket they'd had in the freezer for over five years and was appalled that we cooked it and fed it to our dogs instead of eating it ourselves.



I'm on a weight loss program, I'm down about 20 pounds already, and I"m being really careful about how many calories I consume. When we were asked to come over I said yes, but only if you could have some light like chicken or pork. "Not a problem, come on over." So I'm watching my brother prep the grill, he fires it up but doesn't clean the grill, "Everything just burns off...". I go over and run the brush over the grill and knock off the 1/4 inch of accumulated crap off. My brother bitches about me ruining the "flavor of the grill". Most of it was pure carbon.



So my SIL comes out and puts the chicken on, leaves the plate she brought the chicken out on and goes into the house. I'm talking to my brother and and she come out, turns the chicken and leaves the plate again. We keep talking and she comes out to take up the chicken. As she starts to put the first piece of cooked chicken on the same plate she brought the raw chicken out on I speak up. She just rolls her eyes and puts the chicken on the plate anyway. I told her that I wouldn't eat any chicken and didn't. The wife and I both ate nothing but the salad and homemade bread we brought over. She pitched a fit over us being silly.



I could understand this if she were young and stupid but this a fucking 60 year old woman with a master's degree. She sent me a nasty email about my comments on her food handling habits this morning. So far I'm containing my anger about this but damn...Who contaminates cooked chicken by putting it on the same plate the raw stuff was on. To top it off my brother and her ran a restaurant for some time. Granted she didn't do any cooking but who the hell runs a food business and doesn't understand proper food handling.



So how often do you clean your grill?

That is fucked up.  

ETA:  I approach handling raw meat like a MOPP 4 hazard.  I stop short of the three washing stations, but barely.  I also get the grill insanely hot before I scrape it and cook on it.  

Maybe forward some internet articles about food safety.  Reading something from a source other than you might tip the scales.  I just got over some stomach bug.  Fuck eating that chicken!!

I wash my tongs half way through cooking the chicken (or use another set).




 

She sounds ignorant.

I have relatives who do things like that. I just sopped eating at their houses and make them welcome at mine.

Its probably safe to say I'm not as critical about food handling as the above posters. Of course I'm also not as lax as the OP's SIL.

Fucking dangerous.......is what that is.


I wouldn't have eaten either or I would have made a freakin PBJ or something.  Fuck a bunch of that noise.

after the case of gastro-fucked-up-ness i got two weeks ago that landed me in the ER after 60 hours for dehydration.

i would be that critical also.

send a comment back.

Raw chicken is poison, a friend got campho-bacter (sp?) and was sick for a month.

As I understand it most food borne illness is from cross contamination like your SIL is doing.

The chicken thing you are dead right on.  

The cleaning someone elses grill.  Wow, just wow.  That's a big no-no.

What he said.

I went to eat at a friends house, and his wife said she has these sausage  
burgers that she got from a butcher, i had went to the bathroom and when
i came out my SO said she thinks the butcher left some of the bone in the meat.

I said let me see it, she said i already ate it!!, so my friend take another sausage
burger off the grill and takes a bite and says " yep a little gritty" so i pick up one
and look at it and it is filled up with little pieces of metal !!!, i go look at the grill and
the metal in some places is the size of toothpicks and in some places it missing
hmm i wonder where that went?...
I said doesn't anyone ever look at the grill let alone even clean it...All i got was a
bunch odd looks...
Needless to say i never ate there again...

I found the problem




Ever watch Kitchen nightmares?????????

And that's stuff they KNOW is being recorded.
yes, i worry greatly.

Someone needs to go to a food handlers course...for real

That is just sick and ignorant...it's not your problem though, so don't get mad at her lame email...you're just lucky you saw it happen so you could avoid getting sick.

if you choose to respond this is good advice








otherwise you are the crazy guy that wont eat her food



 

Your SIL's culinary "skills" and "knowledge" are as fucked-up as a football bat.



I bet your brother and her are in a constant state of wonder why they always have liquid shits.

Most people go a little overboard with paranoia about food safety...but I gotta say that is messed up.

Nasty nasty nasty.

IMHO I would stay home and decline any future invites from them. It will be much safer. Putting cooked chicken onto the same plate as the raw chicken?!

LOL, I've NEVER cleaned a grill, usually get 5-7 years before they burn out, (we use it 3-4 times/week) and have never gotten sick from it.
Quick wire brushing before I toss something on it and go!

Raw poultry ain't no joke. What she's doing it nuts.



The grill, I wouldn't worry so much about.

That's some third world bullshit right there...

I do that too, but only because it leaves prettier grill marks not because I'm worried about food safety.

This.



 

I wire brush my grill before every use but aside from that and emptying the grease trap when it's full, what else is there to clean?

but not knowing to NOT put cooked chicken on the same dish the raw chicken was on is not only stupid it's dangerous.

Even if the grille had dog doo on it (literally), you would not get sick from cooking on it if it is the appropriate temperature. That plate that formerly held RAW poultry is where foodborne illness comes from. I clean the grille about once a month.

I brush the grill every time I fire it up... and I wonder why it never seems to take any seasoning...

So you got sick from her cooking but you didn't actually eat any of her cooking?


Or am I missing something.

Also, did your brother and SIL get sick as well from the cooking?

Maybe it was your homemade bread?

I wouldn't eat anything those people had any part of...



the fact that you keep going back there and asking for more?

every time I grill I turn up the heat to high for about 10 minutes (had some pretty interesting grill fires) to burn the old stuff off, then run a wire brush across it to scrape the old stuff off. then I take a wet paper towel and clean the grates while they are hot to clean off the soot.

Then I soak a paper towel in Vegetable oil and run the towel across the grill to get it ready for meat.

By the time it is ready for meat the grates are cleaner than the inside of my oven and nothing ever sticks to the grates because of the oil I spread across it before I put the meat on.

Working in fast food has made me anal about food safety. I'm almost paranoid to eat at other peoples houses.

From how I read it that was part of the problem. He didn't clean the whole grill, just the grates. Brother and SIL cook on the grates no matter how nasty they get.

Clean grill = every time I use it.

Any plate or container that touches the raw meat goes straight to the sink, dishwasher or trash once the meat is on the grill.

If I pull a piece off the grill to cut it and determine if its done and its not, the plate goes back to the sink...

Yep.  That or incorrect temperatures while cooking/tempering/storing.



I fucking hate when I see that shit, especially if they are cooking food I am about to eat.



I have to explain this shit to so many people it is ridiculous. They should require a class on this stuff in high school, along with gun safety, among other things.



 

This, I used to be obsessed with cleanliness, but eased up and realized that a lot of stuff won't kill ya or hurt ya... That said, the OP's SIL is unsafe and unclean.

 

This.



I managed a restaurant for 4 years and have the same problem.



 

A) I burn the grill as clean as possible before scraping and then brushing it. If a fucking germ survives 400+deg of heat, I'm proud to have it in my body. I HAVE NEVER washed a grill from a BBQ pit.

B) I never put cooked food on a plate or in a receptacle that has had raw food in it.

C) Since week before last I came down with a bit of food poisoning (I think it was spoiled milk) I'm a bit careful now-however I'm still a guy and not real anal about "clean room" clean.

I don't think you went overboard at all.

I clean mine every time I use it!

Run the wire brush over it, fire it up and let it heat up and then run the wire brush over it again.

I am by no means an Alton Brown when it comes to food contamination procedures but there is no way in hell that I would use the same plate without washing it in hot water with soap, that is just dangerous. If she ran a restaurant as a manager she should know that kind of thing hands down. Here in NE I am pretty sure as a manager you need a class 3, level 3 (not sure what they call it) food handlers permit. I had one years ago and that was just to work at the snack bar thing in a Target.

Subnet, FTW.

I may have gotten up and left at the chicken incident. Just think if you hadn't watched them do it??

I could overlook the grill though, kind of a 'to each their own' thing. I do think if you crank it up for a few minutes before or after grilling it will essentially autoclave it. But that is not how I do it. I keep the actual grill SPOTLESS. The thing is falling apart everywhere else and this is probably its last season but that grill is like new. My secret?? 18V cordless drill with a wire brush bit. Before I starts just hit that baby and get every bit of carbon off. Takes about 30 seconds (one pass is all it needs if you maintain it). Then my grill sponge and some vinegar before lighting it and cranking up the heat to burn excess everything off.

The chicken though?? Ugh

IMO you're not out of line.

Humanity is the sum of collective knowledge and for her to act like a caveman when its common sense in 2010 to try to keep bacteria levels down as much as you can control, sure they'll always be some but why not control it much as currently possible.

I wonder if she even washes her hands after using the bathroom and handling food?

after working in restaurant for 20 years and numerous food handling/storage, i will say she is fuc*** up!

 

Do you do the 45 degree turn on each side to get the pro looking grill marks?



 

Salmonella - how does it work?

Virtually ALL commercially produced chicken is harboring salmonella and/or campylobacter these days.  I'd pass on the next dinner invite

I don't "clean" the grill per se, but I do scrape it off with the brush when I use it, there's no thick layer of carbon on it, that's for sure, and I let the grill run hot for a little bit to make sure anything is burned up before running the brush over it, then start cooking.



And while I don't clean the tongs halfway through, I do tend to stick the ends into the fire now and then, get them nice and hot, which I'm sure kills any nasty germs.



And I would NEVER put cooked chicken back on the same plate with juices from the raw chicken.  That's just plain idiotic or incredibly naive.



This thread is reminding me... I need to rebuild my grill, the insert under the grill that goes over the flames has been burned out so bad it collapsed last time I used it...

Your a nicer guy than me. Id have gotten up and left

I'd clean the grill at my brother or sister's house.  I'd only do it at a friend's house if I knew the friendship could deal with the fallout of being rude...



But siblings?  No problem, we've been stepping on each other's toes since birth!