Friday night, I got a sign from the kitchen gods.
As you may know, I've been doing a lot of cooking lately. This is not something that comes to me naturally, so I've been working my way up from scrambled eggs to chicken casseroles and the like. Quiches and souffles are still far in the future for me, but my progress has been good. And finicky Nick has eaten everything I prepared, so it can't have been too bad. Overall, I've been pleased with my new skills.
That is, until the stove caught on fire.
I was going to make pasta, you see. I had put some water on to boil, and I was retrieving the pesto sauce from the refrigerator when I smelled something I shouldn't have. Looking over my shoulder, I noticed a single wisp of smoke snaking up from the saucepan. This was worrisome, but I decided it was probably just a few crumbs smoldering in the drip tray, and that it would stop momentarily.
It didn't stop. Instead, there was an audible gust of air, and flames shot out of the side of the pan.
Oops.
Time stood still, and I stared at the fire in disbelief. Then, in the span of a single moment, I had a point-counterpoint session with my second, more pragmatic personality:
Me: This can't be happening. Am I in a movie, or something?
Me II: No, stupid. This is a real fire. Put it out.
Me: Okay. I'll just get some water from the sink and ...
Me II: No! No, no, no! You can't use water on this kind of stove. There's a fire extinguisher right there. It uses a kind of foam, and it won't exacerbate the fire. Go. Get it. NOW.
Me: Oh, but that seems so drastic. Surely I don't need to use that.
Me II: Fine. Then take those dish towels and drape them over the pan to suffocate the fire. You might want to moisten them first....
(Karen starts to drape the towels over the saucepan without moistening them, then backs away from the stove.)
Me II: (irritably) Or don't moisten them, I guess. Obviously you know best.
Me: It's not going to work. This is probably some new evolved kind of fire that doesn't require oxygen to perpetuate itself. We're so screwed.
Me II: Do you hear yourself, for god's sake?
Well, the smothering thing did the trick, and when I removed the dish towels there was nothing but a tattoo of ash on the sides of the saucepan to show the fire had ever been there. Oh, and the air had a slightly mesquite smell to it for a couple of hours. But no big deal. The smoke alarm didn't even go off. I just opened the window, and let the freezing cold air in (it was snowing at the time), so that when Nick got home from work our apartment felt like a meat locker. But nothing can burn in a meat locker, so everything was copacetic.
In retrospect, this whole incident is quite funny, and for two reasons in particular. 1) the idea of a pan full of water going up in flames is pretty bizarre, in and of itself, and 2) boiling water is the single simplest thing you can do in cooking. That's right, I botched the single simplest thing you can do in cooking. Let the blonde jokes commence. I'll read your mocking e-mails as soon as I get this Wite-Out scraped off my computer screen.
In the mean time, I will persevere. I'll consider myself hazed and move on to the next dish (with a fresh drip tray). Hear me, you mischievous kitchen gods! You will not discourage me so easily!