Last weekend, Jenny The Reckless Chef came over to bring me squash soup and gingerbread to comfort my poor sick self, and on a whim she grabbed a frozen cobbler at the store. We don’t usually bake from a box, but it seemed like a nice, quick treat.
Disclaimer: I’d never used the oven in my new apartment.
I turned the knob to set the temperature to 400 degrees, then went to turn the knob to set the oven to “bake.”
The knob was blank. BLANK. All of the words on it had worn off.
Jenny and I pondered for a bit what order the settings might be in – off, bake, broil, clean? I turned it to the first setting and in a few minutes, the oven was nice and hot. Figuring that I’d gotten it right, I put the thawed cobbler in and set the timer for 40 minutes. We went into the living room to enjoy squash soup and watch crappy reality TV.
About 15 minutes later:
“Is that SMOKE in my kitchen?”
We rushed in there and the kitchen was in fact full of smoke* billowing from the oven. I opened the oven door.
The top of the cobbler was ON FIRE.
“Grab a camera!” Jenny screeched.**
Yeah, never mind that there was an open flame in my gas oven. This was for posterity.
It. Smelled. DISGUSTING. Even after we opened windows and fanned the smoke outside,*** the whole house was reeking of burnt pastry. We decided that we must have set the oven to “broil” instead of “bake,” so the top heating element at 400 degrees on a piece of pastry was to blame. I’d always had an oven where the broiler was a separate drawer on the bottom, so the idea of broiling something inside the oven did not even occur to me.
The charred top of the cobbler was pretty much solid, but Jenny stuck a fork down into the bottom of the pan to see if any of the berries could be salvaged.
“These are awful,” she said, wrinkling her nose but not missing a beat. “OMG, we have to Twitter this right now!”
Fail can be funny.
_____________________
* And NEITHER of my smoke alarms went off, which you can imagine made me oh-so-happy and safe-feeling, right?
** She’s not called the Reckless Chef for nothing. Her blog is full of pictures of things she’s burned, melted, and broken.
*** The smoke alarms never did go off. I will be speaking to my landlord. For that – and a new oven knob.
8 Comments so far
Leave a comment
“Grab the camera!” Spoken like true bloggers. Ha! Always document stories that can someday become great blog posts.
Stephany´s last blog ..Unfinished Business
[Reply]
By Stephany on 11.01.09 5:34 pm | Permalink
I do hope you have a working smoke alarm now. Next time, we’ll do the baking at my place
Jenny´s last blog ..It’s Nablammo!
[Reply]
By Jenny on 11.01.09 7:36 pm | Permalink
That is hilarious awesome. I always worried I would confuse broil and bake. Thanks for showing me what happens
Jessica´s last blog ..Weekend recap: A pink Halloween
[Reply]
By Jessica on 11.01.09 8:52 pm | Permalink
I about DIED laughing reading this story. That’s hilarious.
Related: you know you’re obsessed with social networking when your first thoughts during a fire involve taking pictures & tweeting.
Melissa´s last blog ..making a home.
[Reply]
By Melissa on 11.01.09 11:29 pm | Permalink
Ohmigod, that’s horrible and hilarious at the same time. Go out for some cobbler next time and save your kitchen
[Reply]
By Meghan on 11.02.09 5:14 pm | Permalink
I was at The Activist’s house when she sent me the “I just set Rebekah’s oven on fire” text and just about died laughing in his living room.
He was very confused until I filled him in, at which point HE about died laughing too.
Joy @ Big Time Fancy´s last blog ..Cannot Catch A Break
[Reply]
By Joy @ Big Time Fancy on 11.04.09 2:16 pm | Permalink
[...] had the best luck with fire lately. First, we discovered her lack of smoke alarm thanks to an ancient oven and a blackberry pie. Then, the laundromat brought her some more fire woes, and reminded her why she’ll never be [...]
By Fire (Just Kidding!) | Swinging from the Chandelier on 01.17.10 8:02 am | Permalink
[...] that I have to wash again before I leave on vacation tomorrow. I relived the other fires, the funny and the not-funny-at-all, in my [...]
By Toast. (Or, why I’ll never be Zen) | Swinging from the Chandelier on 01.17.10 9:37 am | Permalink
Leave a comment