"If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen."

I wasn't planning on posting today, but something happened this evening that I think demands mention. We had a grease fire in our oven. Lots of fun.

We were making a nice Sunday dinner for which I would be fifth wheel (Scott Grupke and his wife were going to join us), Rachel turned the oven on for the potatoes while I was getting green beans ready. We smelled smoke, but I figured our oven was just being retarded, because weird smells come from it all the time. The smoke detectors went off and I just ignored it for a minute, because they go off every time we cook. But when I turned around and saw the entire apartment filled with smoke, I freaked out a little bit. I opened the oven (bad idea, the oxygen made the fire worse), and saw a nice little fire in the oven. After trying to pull the broiler pan out with oven mits or a pair of tongs (bad idea again), the smoke got too thick to breathe and Rachel and I had to get out. After making a few phone calls (Ilan, the rental company, my mom), we tried putting salt on the fire (Mom's suggestion). Didn't really help. I eventually found a fire extinguisher on the second floor (ironically enough, it was being used to prop open one of the fire safety doors which are supposed to remain shut).

Crash course in fire extinguisher operation. I also found out that the stuff that comes out smells really bad, and becomes a layer of dust everywhere. It's also a bitch to clean up.

So we packed up the food and took it over to Ilan's to have dinner, since the apartment was not going to be habitable for a few hours, until the smoke cleared out. Really yummy dinner, by the way!

So when I came back later, I decided cleaning the oven sounded like more fun than finishing my jazz theory arrangement. Not really. Fire extinguisher dust and burned grease do not come off easily.

At least the oven got cleaned, though.