Seniors get a kitchen safety lesson

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By JAN HOGAN

VIEW STAFF WRITER

There are precautions we all learned as children, but when it comes to kitchen safety, perhaps they bear repeating -- Clean up spills right away. Don't leave a cooking pot unattended. Have a first-aid kit handy. Use a sturdy step tool to access high shelves. Know how to use your fire extinguisher.

To help senior citizens reacquaint themselves with kitchen safety, the Las Vegas Fire and Rescue Department teamed up with Smart & Final Stores Corporation and recently held a safety awareness seminar at the Howard Lieburn Senior Center, 6230 Garwood Ave.

Tim Szymanski, public information officer for Fire and Rescue, said kitchen fires are the No. 1 cause of injury nationwide.

"We're in our kitchens a lot because everybody cooks every day," he said. "Most kitchen fires begin largely because food was left cooking, unattended. People are cooking something on the stove and they go next door for something or they fall asleep. That's how it happens."

He said a stove doesn't have to be turned on to start a fire. Sometimes people will neglect to clean a stove top spill before leaving their home. While they're away, the family dog will smell the spill and attempt to get at it. Their paws swipe at the controls and turn them on.

If the stove elements are still hot, it can start a fire "and the people come home to $60,000 to $70,000 worth of damage. Even a burner left on just a hair can start a fire," Szymanski said.

About three dozen seniors attended the seminar.

Retirees Bernard and Ida Schoemberg said they were not the type to put off cleaning up spills or leave out sharp utensils. That's because they owned a meat market and catering company in Cypress, Calif.

"We're super-organized in the kitchen," Ida Schoemberg said. "We always have been."

Kitchen fires are one of the leading causes of deaths among older Las Vegans, but are not the only danger. Knives can slice into skin. Slick spills can cause falls and broken bones.

Mario Martinoli was the featured speaker at the refresher course. A celebrity chef, he catered for the long-running television shows "Cheers" and "Seinfeld." He is now the executive chef for Smart & Final.

His speech did not just cover bullet points of common hazards -- he cooked while he spoke, demonstrating how simple it is to let one's guard down.

First he showed how quickly a pan could get hot. Then he explained how denying a fire of oxygen would put it out instantly.

"If you're in the kitchen and your pot catches fire, don't throw water on it," he said. "Grab your cutting board, or the lid to that pot or a saute pan, anything like that, and set it on top of the burning pot. It'll put out the fire."

He said tossing water on a fire only super-heats the water and vaporizes any oils in the cooking pot, which then spatter in the immediate area, creating the potential for new, miniature fires.

Martinoli conceded that a fire extinguisher was not an aesthetically pleasing addition to one's kitchen wall.

"So let your grandchildren decorate it," he said. "They can paint little houses or something like that on it and then it'll fit right in with your decor."

Martinoli also spoke of the importance of cleaning an oily spill right away and how to avoid cross contamination. For the latter, he suggested taking half a lemon and swiping it across the cutting board. The acidity of the lemon kills bacteria almost instantly.

"It's such a simple thing to do, but boy is it effective," he said.

He also demonstrated how to dry a knife by pulling it through a folded towel, with the teeth turned toward you and away from the palm of your hand so you don't end up with "four fingers falling into your stew."

At the back of the room was a display with fire extinguishers, 911 magnets, self-stick thermometers and informational fliers.

Terry Stroud, a retired utility manager from Colorado, said she never had any frantic accidents while making dinner, but her son made an error, one he never repeated.

"He was 5 and he reached up and put his hand on a hot burner and burned himself," she said.

At the end of the talk, the audience got to taste the shrimp salad Martinoli prepared as he spoke.

Retired nurse Vi Fitzpatrick said she learned a couple new things, like why it's important to clean spills immediately.

"And I learned how to dry my knives," she said. "I don't want to have my fingers falling in my stew."