the passionate ailurophile

…according to Alton Brown, is a FIRE EXTINGUISHER!

Last night, we had a nasty kitchen fire. I was grilling some eggplant on my cast iron reversible grill/griddle, the kind that goes over two burners. All of a sudden, I noticed that there were FLAMES coming out from underneath…and we have an ELECTRIC stove.

I’m not sure how it happened. I do have to re-season both sides of the cast iron, and maybe the griddle side, that was facing down, was too greasy, and that is what caught fire. Or perhaps there was just some gunk under the burners that I didn’t see.

Whatever…it was rather scary, but luckily, we have a fire extinguisher. Our landladies give us one every couple of years, yes, they do need to be replaces every so often, even if you never use it.

So the fire got put out, with NO damage to anything or anybody…it was contained to the stove and didn’t spread…so Mike didn’t have to put on his heavy duty Merrell shoes and try to stomp it out.

Hell, I even salvaged the eggplant, as I had to remove the grill thingy in order to put the fire out.  Having heavy-duty, fire-resistant gloves (another thing that Alton Brown likes) is way better than wussy pot holders and oven mitts, especially in a case like this.

Disaster averted, but that stove was a bear to clean up afterwards.  But it looks just like new, no one would be able to tell that there ever was a fire on it!

Anyway, let this be a lesson to all.  If you don’t have at least a kitchen fire extinguisher, get thee to Home Depot or Lowe’s or wherever and get one.  It can not only save your home, but possibly your life, and those of your family members!

This has been a public service announcement from your friendly neighborhood Ailurophile.  Now, I’m off to TGI Friday’s to watch the Sox game, since the North Shore Navigators game we were supposed to go to today was postponed yet again.  Oh, well!