All fired up!

      See this little white apple-shaped cutting board?  See the nasty ole' cooktop that killed his twin?  Well, the now-deceased apple cutting board participated in a kitchen fire recently.  I used to have two of these, but now I only have one.  However, I'm lucky to still have a kitchen!  Here's what happened:

    Before I suddenly got a social life a couple of weeks ago, I occupied my abundant free time with housewifely activities like cooking.  This was before I discovered how cheaply a person can eat in Malaysia by going to hawker stalls or eating all the retiree-sized portions the supermarkets sell.  
   
  So, my days of making up monstrous casseroles of lasagna by the dozen are now, apparently, over.   Now I just go and buy a little ready-made square of frozen lasagna the size of a cocktail napkin and turn it into a meal by adding a salad and some frozen garlic bread.  E voila--dinner!

    Anyway, back to the near-disaster that happened in my kitchen the other day.   I was making an amateur's version of that diet classic, quiche lorraine.   That involved frying bacon.  After that was finished,  the hot frying pan needed to go somewhere.  Being a new tenant, I surely didn't want to sully the stainless steel countertops!  My eye fell on the little white plastic cutting board and clearly my brain was not engaged at that particular moment.   I put the hot skillet down on the cutting board and did something else.  Needed to cook something else, so I picked up the frying pan and plopped it back onto the hot cook surface.  Big mistake!

       "Hmm . . . .what's all that white smoke curling up from under the skillet?" I asked myself.  "Must be some grease that splattered onto the cooking surface." My next thought was, "Oh, boy -- is there a fire extinguisher out there in the hallway?  I think I'm gonna need it!"  The little white apple cutting board had melted and stuck to the bottom of the frying pan unbeknownst to me.  So, I'd unwittingly transported a white plastic item onto the red-hot cooking ring.   There were actually flames coming out from underneath the skillet!   Funny, I didn't think you could have a kitchen fire where there was no open flame like from a gas burner, but I guess you can. . . . 

      Extinguishing the flame wasn't the problem.  Rather, it was the gooey mass of white plastic that had melted and glued the skillet to the burner.  I spent the following hour bathed in nervous sweat, uttering unlady-like comments as I desperately scraped the plastic off  the cook surface.  I mostly succeeded but there are still little bits of blackened plastic that you might be able to see on the big left-hand burner in the photo.  Amazingly, the burner still works, but it isn't nearly as smooth and glossy as it once was.   And I now know that burning plastic leaves a nasty chemical smell that lasts for a loooong time!

       Dunno if there's any connection, but a week or so later, our whole condo complex had a fire drill. We may not have met the fire codes because soon after that, a giant, almost-writhing mass of white, snakelike fire hoses appeared in the garage area and is still there today.  They're being replaced with new ones, one by one, at a snail's pace.   The fire extinguishers are also being replaced, but the rack for the one outside our door has been empty for a couple of weeks now.  That's a bit unnerving.   If anybody needs a fire extinguisher outside the door, it would be ME!

    I don't plan to do any more serious cookery until a new one appears outside our unit.  You might say I'm no longer fired up about cooking in Penang!