Stress Free Dinner

At the risk of seeming like I’m a klutz or something worse, let me tell you about a minor incident that took place when I was cooking dinner for Sue. She is a hard worker and after a long day at the ministry I like her to come home to a stress-free dinner. It was late in the afternoon, so I decided to cook some fish in oil. I had never cooked in oil, so that would be a pleasant change for her.

I carefully placed the frying pan onto the gas oven. I then skillfully poured the oil into the pan, making sure that not a drop went onto the stove. I had noticed that when Sue gets home she will often grab a sponge cloth and wipe the counter or stove (she’s a clean-freak), and my goal was to keep her stress free. Not the tiniest drop hit the stove top. Carefulness is my middle name.

I often visualize myself having a "Comfort Food" television program, where I expertly teach people the do's and don’ts of cooking. I turned on the gas, making sure the flame was high, but not too high. I then took a piece of especially prepared fish from the refrigerator and carefully dropped it from about six inches into the half inch of very hot oil in the pan. “Kah-bush!” would probably be the right word to use to describe the noise that came the second the fish hit the pan. (Note to reader or television viewer: Never “drop” anything into very hot oil because it splashes and tends to explode as it hits fire. Also, when cooking with oil, it is wise to use about one thirty-second of an inch on the bottom of the pan. Not half an inch. That much oil tends to make a big splash).

I leaped back in horror and stared at the two and a half-foot-high ten-inch-wide pillar of flame that roared in front of me. Man did it roar! Despite this, I didn’t panic. Like a trained professional, I quickly grabbed a fire extinguisher and skillfully aimed it at the fire. It was out in about a second and things were back to normal. No problem.

No problem?! The kitchen was filled with white and stinky smoke. The counter, the stove, the sink, the floor...everything looked as though it was covered in a blanket of pure white snow. Yikes! Sue would be home in ten minutes! I rushed to the back door and opened it. Then to the front door and opened it. I turned on a huge exhaust fan to get the smoke out of the house. In seconds it had cleared. Now it was just a matter of . . . a van was pulling up the driveway! It was Sue. She had come home a little early, after a particularly hard day at the ministry, and she was coming home to her usual stress-free dinner!

I casually rushed out to the driveway, where, for some reason she had stopped the van. The window was down and she had a concerned look on her face. She asked, “Why are the doors open? What's going on?” I smiled and said, “Hi Love, do you want to drive around the block for 5-6 minutes?" That was about the time I estimated it would take to remove the snow from the kitchen. It took two of us about an hour to clean up.

Sue still lets me cook dinner. I will not be doing a television show.