Stupidity, Smoke & Spatulas

You know those spatulas that are rated to 500°? Worth every penny.

You know those stoves that run on gas? Want one.

Let’s just say I wanted to make hot chocolate. Seems innocent enough, right? Put water in the kettle, turn the burner on. Jump on the computer to check my email. Then I start smelling something…like heat. Well, I did just turn the furnace on. Mmmm, no, more like…cooking? Maybe something was on the burner under the kettle that I missed. Hmmm, getting stronger…I better go check it out.

THE KITCHEN WAS FULL OF SMOKE! What the…? ARGH!!!! I had turned on the wrong burner—the one that still had my fry pan [from dinner] left on it…with the spatula laying in it! I tore open the porch door, threw the pan on the grill, turned on the microwave fan, opened all the windows in the kitchen, and set up a fan (leftover from summer) to blow the smoke out. I was keeping my fingers crossed that the smoke alarm didn’t go off—it takes forever to quiet it down again! (In fact, I’m surprised the smoke alarm hadn’t gone off. Well, I guess I could still see, so maybe it wasn’t THAT bad.)

A few minutes later, all was well. I went to retrieve the pan from the grill and it was still smoking, so I retrieved the spatula, expecting to have to trash it. But what do you know? It was my fancy schmancy Williams Sonoma one…so no damage done!

P.S. Did I forget to mention this isn’t the first time this has happened? I miss gas stoves, where you can instantly see which burner you turned on!

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