Cooking with Gas
I grew up cooking on an electric stovetop.
Yesterday, I came close to burning my house down.
Today, I own an appliance for deep frying.
Yes, these facts are related.
Like I said, I was going to make veggie chips. Oil goes into the pot. Pot goes onto the stovetop. Oil heats. A few pieces of sliced sweet potato go in. Cook. I sample, decide the chips need to be thinner. So I cut more, thinner.
Handful of thin sweet potato slices go in. Now, I know that oil bubbles up when you throw stuff in there. That's why it was small handful, and the pot was less than half full full. Apparently I underestimated how small of a handful it takes to make oil boil way way over.
It isn't the first time I've underestimated something on this stove. This is my first house with a gas stove, I've had to learn the ins and outs of it. In the meantime, my stove has consumed, burnt, and/or melted tupperware, plastic cups, food wrappers, a wooden spatula, various scrapes of meat/veggies, and tea bag tabs hanging over the side of a pot. Apparently I just tended to underestimate just how far away things needed to be from that blue flame before there was no risk to it.
Anyways, so oil boils over, hits the flame, and I see it leap. Pop, crackle, blue firejumps up in the air, turns yellow......
I'm backed up away from it staring at this, thinking "Oh shit." and wondering if this could cause an explosion, and wondering if a bag of flour could subsitute for sand for a grease fire. For some reason I don't even think of the chemical fire extinguisher under the sink.
And then fizzles out, so much oil continuing to boil over that it actually PUTS THE FLAME OUT.
Later I think about what could have happened. This old wood house, dry environment, neighborhood, houses so close together. I also remember the fire extinguisher and promise myself I will not forget it again.
A few seconds after my oh-shit moment, Kevin comes in and asks what happened. I explain and am grateful again for a husband that shrugs about such things, not one to fret over what -could- have happened.
However, later than afternoon, he also has no qualms about hunting down a small deep fryer for the kitchen, seemed rather enthusiastic about it, even.
Then again, he gets enthusiastic about potato chips so, who's to say.