How many fires?

Something that I just cannot wrap my head around.

 

 

I don't know how many fires it will take for my family to learn that I am not the most skilled cook in the family. My culinary skills are certainly shadowed by my numerous other talents and, yet,  my family continues to approach me to satisfy their hunger needs.

 

Take tonight for example, I was asked to prepare a simple meal from a box. While my skillet was on the burner I noticed some smoke arising from below the pan -- I moved the pan and didn't see anything out of the ordinary for me.  (Often times when I cook boiling water spills over the side of the pan to create steam on the burner - it is typical.) Tonight though, I didn't make the association that I wasn't boiling water and nothing could have spilled over the side of the pan.

 

So, I continue cooking. I turned my back for just a second, and when I focused back in on the skillet there were flames about 6 inches high billowing out from beneath the pan. As this is not the first time I have had a fire in the kitchen I did not panic; I have learned that panicking just delays the actions that need to  be taken.  At the same time, my mom and son were entering the kitchen from the back door to see the growing flames. I could not recall what to use, "Flour, mom?" I asked her and she replied, "Yes." So I reached above the flames to the cabinet and grabbed the canister of flour. I reached in and grabbed a handful of flour and tossed it into the flames. The flames were resisting the flour's retardant and continued to grow. The fire was now approaching two feet tall and reaching the light and fan above the stove. I took handful after handful of flour and continued to toss it on the raging inferno (lol) -- the whole stove was a white powdery mess before the fire was finally smothered out.

 

I have to remind you that this is not the first time this has happened to me. My own son, Andrew will shrink out of the kitchen if he hears oil sizzling in a  pan. We've had a multitude of fires happen in our kitchen: the infamous Papa Murphy's Pizza fire (I was just baking a take-home pizza), the Thomas the Tank Engine fire in the microwave, the overcooked toast fire (the toast resembled more of a briquette of charcoal when finally discovered), and the worst fire of all was the fire that occured in the bottom of the oven that resulted in a very angry speech impaired grandfather storming out of the house. (Sure, maybe the stress of living with us had something to do with his untimely death, but that's not to say we didn't take damn good care of him!) Those are the most memorable and the more recent fires -- there are others!

 

I am fortunate because on most occassions my husband cooks, he is a very good cook and makes the most delicious meals (doesn't even use a box!) But I am unfortunate to have a family that suffers from short term memory loss and still insists that I am a valuable asset in the kitchen.

Regardless of my family's severe memory loss, I still must pose the question -- How many fires is it going to take for my family to realize I CANNOT cook and shouldn't be allowed in the kitchen??