Lesson of the day

Did you know that cast iron gets really hot and radiates quite a bit of heat? Even when it is only on the burner next to the one that is turned on?

I knew that it gets hot, but I didn't realize how hot it would get. We used my husbands flat bottom dutch oven, last night when we made dinner. After we ate, we cleaned it, but neglected to put it away. Instead it was set on top of the stove. Which is a common thing for us to do.

Well today Cinderella requested macaroni and cheese for lunch. Well I got out a pan, and found the dutch oven still sitting on the stove. Well I was being lazy, and just moved it to the back burner so that I could use the front burner for the macaroni.

So I cooked the macaroni, and was in the process of combining the sauce when I looked and saw this.

OK so I realize the picture isn't very good detail, so I'll explain. The black, is the dutch oven. The cream, gray thing is our kitchen scale. The yellowing color on the scale is where it melted. That's right it melted. When I first noticed it I thought, "When did this melt? I haven't noticed it melted before." I reached out and touched it, and realized it was still warm.

Then I was trying to figure out if I had somehow bumped my saucepan against it. Then I realized that the dutch oven was hot to the touch, on both the side next to the element, and over where it is near the scale. So then I deducted what must have happened.
I am just amazed, that a heat that high traveled that far, and I didn't notice.