Brandon, who had this great story about a kitchen misadventure, and is the winner of the $20 Gift Card to Cookware.com.
Since my wife told my king cake story, I’ll tell the story of when I set her kitchen on fire. When we first met, Janelle and I lived in different states: her in Kansas and me in Florida. I made the decision to move up to Florida, and I came and stayed with her while interviewing for a job up here. I think it was my second night up here, and I decided to impress her by baking some cookies. As I was putting the cookie tray in the oven, one lump of cookie dough fell down to the bottom of the oven. “No problem,” I thought, “I’ll just scoop it up.” No such luck. The oven had some sort of vent at the bottom, and the cookie had fallen into that. Oh well. No use crying over spilled cookie dough. It wasn’t long before black smoke started pouring out of the oven. I forgot to mention that this entire time, Janelle was on the front porch talking on the phone with one of her out-of-state friends. As she was talking, she saw me walk outside, past her, carrying the smoke alarm from her kitchen. “What happened?” she asked. “Don’t freak out, but I think I set your oven on fire.” Janelle hastily got off the phone and went into the kitchen to find it absolutely filled with black smoke. She had the sense to turn it off. (I was bound and determined to get those cookies baked, so that thought never occurred to me.) The cookies were a little doughy, and had a strong smoky flavor, but were at least edible. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I managed to set her kitchen on fire a second time before we were married. That one wasn’t my fault, though–a loaf of garlic bread spontaneously combusted in her oven. She still married me and lets me cook, and I’m happy to say we’ve been fire-free for over two years now!
Brandon, I’ve sent you an email.
Thanks everyone for entering and telling me about your kitchen mishaps. I had a great time reading everyone of them. They each made me smile.