Burned pan

As I was getting up this morning, my son, age 17, asked me, "What do you do if you burned a pan?" So relaxing. I gave directions and hurried downstairs as soon as I could. He had read the directions on a bag of meatballs from the restaurant supply store. It said, put the meatballs (five pound bag frozen) into whatever sauce you want, then heat on the stovetop for 35 minutes. He noticed it bubbling much sooner and was surprised. He moved the sauce (only about a pint of sauce and a couple dozen meatballs) from the pan into a carton, then came to ask what to do with the burned pan. I was not as patient as maybe I could have been... and he spent some time yelling at himself over it (figuratively self-flagellating). Finally I asked him, "How do you think I know what to do?" He said, "By learning it?" I said, "By messing it up myself." We laughed a little then.

Our saucepans are stainless steel with an aluminum disk on the bottom. I recently replaced two of them, because after years of use and several overheatings, the aluminum disks were too rippled to set flat on our glass-top stove. Yeah, we've done this before.