I'm having you over for dumplings and monkey stew.*

And after my previous post, I must confess that I had a small kitchen fire on Monday night.

Days before that, I had boiled a whole chicken in a big pot on the stovetop. Well, the pot wasn't really big enough, so drops of water would splash-boil out from time to time. The next time I used that particular burner was to boil eggs, which, of course, meant using the highest setting. It smoked for two seconds before bursting into flames. And I don't mean a tiny pinpoint flame like when a stray crumb burns, I mean the entire drip-pan-thing under the burner was aflame. So I turned it off, removed the pot of eggs, and watched it for a second hoping it would burn itself out. Which it didn't. So I grabbed the fire extinguisher, pulled the pin, and just as I was about to spray it, the fire started to burn out.

Technically, this doesn't speak against my cooking skills, just my stovetop cleaning skills. And yes, it still smells like chicken in my kitchen.


*The Monkey Song on the Animaniacs cartoon