Toasted

I have the good fortune of experiencing only mild mishaps in the kitchen throughout my amateur career as a foodie. I have couple of nasty scars from burns. I have a small reputation of burning croutons.. oh yeah, and there is that time when I cut the top of my thumb off and had to get it sewn back on. The point is that besides my mistakes, I keep working to be creative and cook up yummy eats. This weekend John and I had my parents over for dinner. Being only mildly hungover, I thought, "I'm a professional amateur, I can make a simple, yet impressive meal no problem."

I started by cooking my favorite thing, dessert. Rocky Road Brownies. I got the brownies made no problem. They were beautiful. Now time for the topping: Marshmallows, almonds, semi sweet chocolate. check! Ready to melt.

I put my concoction under the broiler and sat on the ground in front of the oven to keep an eye on it. I turned the pan around a few times to ensure that all sides were browning evenly. I closed the oven and turned to get my pot holders to pull the perfect brownies out quite satisfied with my job well done.

As I opened the oven.. FLAMES came pouring out!! After closing the oven and wondering what to do... I opened the oven again convinced that I had hallucinated the whole thing. I was wrong.

The flames were even bigger now and beginning to climb out of the oven to the stove top! I heard myself yell to John: "JOHN! HELP! FIRE!"
Then I burst out laughing. I laughed and laughed and laughed. The marshmallows were fully engulfed in flames. I had flaming brownies! Through teary eyes and doubled over laughter, I saw John grab the brownies and run outside! I was absolutely no help as John risked his life pulling the flaming brownies out of the oven and running outside! (did I mention that we don't have a fire extinguisher!?)

All ended well for us. No burned down house, no injuries. But I am sad to announce that the brownies did not make it.

The rest of the dinner turned out yummy and not burned. Thank God. John even saved the day (again) by making another batch of brownies... without the rocky road topping this time!

Kitchen art.. food gone terribly wrong!