keepin' it HOT in the kitchen

i have been called upon by mr. coacher to share our first 'good' story of married life, which happened only 13 days into it.

we had a ton of food left over from the wedding, which was taking up most of our freezer space. so, we decided to heat some up and take them over to the tucker house (where we intended to plan a costa rican adventure....details still tbd). incidentally, we have found that taking good food to people helps maintain friendships.

i spaced the wings out on the pan to be placed into our gas oven (which we don't have much experience using). then i went into the living room to wait a few minutes before putting them in. (didn't want them to get cold.) while i was out of the room, mr. coacher turned the oven on and put the wings in. no big deal. at least, not until i started smelling something burning.

"it smells like something's burning." (me)
"yeah, but i just put them in." (coacher)

a few seconds later, we both realized that, in fact, something was burning. rushing into the kitchen, coacher opened the oven door to find flames engulfing the wings and everything around them.

i ran to the back room to grab the fire extinguisher (this may or may not have been necessary, but the flames were pretty intimidating and, as father bybee says, "safety first.")

"here, use this. i don't know how it works, but it looks like a good idea..."

coacher saved the day by extinguishing the fire. however, the powdery stuff from the extinguisher went all over the kitchen and everything in it. (and we still have its dust on the ottoman in the living room.)

turns out you are not supposed to store your stuff (ie a couple of pans and a pampered chef stone in its cardboard box) in that drawer at the bottom of the oven. it's a fire hazard. (but we needed storage space. it seemed like a good idea at the time.) we saw the written warning, "do not use for storage," in the drawer while cleaning the powder and ash the saturday after all the excitement. too bad the broiling pan was covering the warning before.

a few comments about this story:
1 -- none of our fire detectors went off. not good.
2 -- the fresh rice krispy treats that were sitting on the counter still went to the tucker house, possibly with a little extra powdered "seasoning".
3 -- we both thought about taking a picture to share, but at the time it was more ridiculous than funny. since then we have found that this sort of thing happens to a lot of people.
4 -- to our new neighbor, ashley: we might not be coming down to borrow a cup of sugar. we may, however, come down to borrow a fire extinguisher or two every now and then.
5 -- finally, i would like to formally state that neither one of us in the newly-established lotz household are pointing fingers at eachother. (however, i think i'll go ahead and partially blame this on those of you who didn't eat enough wings at the wedding. if you had done your jobs, none of this would have ever happened.)

but you have to admit, our kitchen's hotter than most.