Yeeeeoowwwch! My pal Kathleen is an avid and talented baker, and in the midst of a late night apple tartlet frenzy, managed to wound herself severely with a lashing of molten sugar. If you've never suffered a sugar burn, consider yourself among the blessed. Professional bakers refer to boiled sugar as "edible napalm," as it's blisteringly hot and adheres to skin in a way that make it almost impossible to wash or scrape off in the frenzy of the moment.

Yes, a hospital trip would have been a logical solution, but a New York City emergency room on a Friday night seemed like neither an efficient nor inexpensive bet. Kathleen took to the internet to research the appropriate first aid for a sugar burn, and made a quick stop by Facebook to announce her plight. The sympathy and suggestions from friends began pouring in: "package of frozen edamame," "If hot sugar or water burns skin, place skin in cold water (not ice)." "Pure aloe squeezed from a leaf will promote healing, you should be able to obtain it from the greengrocer or garden shop." "Wrap lightly in gauze."

She settled for a combo of the latter two and is in much better shape today, but Monday (or, uh, Sunday) morning quarterbacking it -- what is in fact the best way to deal with a sugar burn? Even for veteran web researchers like those rallying around Kathleen, it proved incredibly difficult to pin down an definitive answer. If we can collectively share some wisdom here in the comments, perhaps it might serve as a starting point for someone in a similar situation in the future. Links or advice, anyone?

Oh -- and I'm getting her an elbow-length silicone oven mitt for Christmas. Shhhh!

Burning your hand is a painful experience. Instead of running to the medicine cabinet next time, check out this alternative pain reliever found right in your kitchen!

Back in December, I wrote a post about how scientists had found that taking a spoonful of honey could help suppress a cough. There was some dissent in the comments about whether or not the finding was true, although several people wrote in to say that they had had positive experiences soothing a ragged cough with honey.

Whether or not it will help with a cough, apparently honey can help to ease the pain of minor burns. In recent studies, scientists have found that honey has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. So next time you burn yourself in the kitchen, grab that jar of honey and dab a little on for some relief.

[via Green Daily]

If ever you plan to grab dinner at Sporting Clube de Londres in West London, make sure you wear a welding mask.

At least, if you order the chorizo appetizer.

Rui Daniel Faria Velosa, the owner of the Portuguese restaurant, was fined April on April 12 for an incident that occurred back in May 2005. A server brought the appetizer in the ceramic dish to the table. The food was already flaming, but the server returned with more rum to top off the dish. The rum spilled all over the woman, leaving her with burns on her face and hands. She spent two weeks in the hospital and still suffers from flashbacks, panic attacks, and anxiety.

If that happened to me, I'd probably eat raw food for the rest of my life.

Burning your tongue on a hot drink is no picnic, but burning it while drinking from an insulated commuter mug is worse. Not only does the cup disguise the temperature of the beverage it contains, making you more likely to subject your tongue to overly-hot drinks in the first place, but they do not allow drink not cool down fast enough to prevent repeat burns. Combine that with a morning commute in rush hour traffic and you will probably discover the source of many cases of "road rage."

Fortunately, there is a cup that offers a solution. The Tip and Sip Cup keeps coffee hot at up to 205 degrees, which is the temperature that most coffee is brewed at. When it is tipped (for a sip), the coffee passes into a patented Temperature Control Chamber, which lowers the temperature of the coffee to the "Perfect Zone" of 150-170F, leaving you with a satisfying swig of coffee and no burns. The triple function lid has a spill-proof lock setting and a regular "sip" setting that bypasses the temperature control chamber, in addition to the cooling function.

It is available in raspberry, lime, orange, forest, black, or blue and is priced at $19.95. The cost of never burning your tongue again? Priceless.

[via book of joe]

An Indianapolis couple, Michael and Alexis Brennan, is suing Starbucks, claiming that they served their daughter a cup of hot chocolate, which subsequently spilled and left her with serious burns. The daughter, whose age was not given, but was young enough to fit in a car seat, was said to have been riding strapped into that car seat in the back of the car when she spilled the drink. The mother stopped the car and got out to discover that the "skin on [her] leg was falling off of her."

Starbucks is supposed to serve their kids sized drinks at about 20 degrees less than their standard temperature, putting those drinks at about 140F or so, which is hot, but not incredibly so when you consider the size of the cup and the fact that they are often topped with an inch or more of cold whipped cream, as this particular drink was. The baristas can make it at a lower temperature if requested. A high percentage of parents test the temperature of their kids' drinks by taking a sip themselves, but Ms. Brennan only subjected the drink to a visual inspection before handing it to her daughter. A small child holding a drink of any kind in the backseat of a moving car, especially if he or she is small enough to have to be confined to a car seat, sounds like a recipe for disaster, regardless of whether the drink is hot or not. The parents are, of course, seeking (unspecified) damages.