A truly inspired chain of events helped spice up an otherwise dull Sunday.
Daddy has a huge garden this year, filled with all sorts of veggies (and an occasional melon). We seemed to have more than our fair share of zucchini, so I thought to myself, "I'll just whip up some zucchini bread!"
The recipe did not go quite as I had intended (besides the baking injury, of course; doesn't everyone slice their finger open when trying to grate zucchini?); it made a tad bit more than just one loaf (which isn't the best thing, since we've only got one loaf pan), which caused it to overflow after a while. Some little spills ended up on the bottom of the oven before I got the chance to put something underneath the bread to catch the drippings. "Not a big deal," I thought to myself, "I'll take care of it later. Right now, we'll just focus on getting this bread finished, and starting dinner."
As the bread comes out of the oven, still slightly drippy, but smelling lovely, I turn the oven up by about seventy-five degrees to bake something else. Imagine my surprise when I go to put our garlic bread in the oven to find a small fire.
Luckily for me, my mother happened to be standing near enough to me to see what was going on.
"It'll burn itself out, but I'll go get your dad, anyway."
I hear her walk in his direction, open the door, and say, quite calmly, "There's a fire in our kitchen."
Now, maybe it's just me, but I think there's something wrong with the reactions to serious situations in this family. Remember the Katie incident?
It was enough to get his attention, though, judging from the way he hurried into the kitchen, and looked at the oven.
I was busy stirring something on the stove (you know, trying to prevent another fire), but out of the corner of my eye, I saw him pull two paper towels off the roll, and head to the sink.
"What on earth is he doing?" I thought to myself.
It didn't occur to me that he would stick wet paper products into our oven, which was still ON FIRE.
I watched as he threw the paper towels into the tiny inferno, and the following fracas. My favorite part was when I had to inform him that the floor was on fire.
We'll always have this lovely discolored spot on our linoleum to remember the evening's events by.
It was quite a bit of fuss for some zucchini bread, but it turned out to be lovely.
A keeper recipe, indeed!
You know, minus the blood, and fire.
Just remember, kids: only you can prevent oven fires.
Reginald Kitty is not amused.
