In my first major cooking mishap at home, I was making some chicken and it caught on fire. The fire wasn’t big at all, the flame was a couple of inches high … not too bad. But my latest cooking mishap was a tad worst … more like, “Oh my shit, the kitchen is REALLY going to burn down this time”, not even joking about it.

Okay let’s setup the scene … last night I'm standing at the stove wondering what to make for dinner this week (my folks don't return from their Alaskan cruise until tomorrow). I decided on a dish and went to get my ingredients. So I grabbed some frozen veggies and shrimp out of the freezer to defrost for a minute or two. I turn on the stove (medium heat) and put the skillet on to warm it up.

As I’m waiting, I go and eat a palmful of peanut m&m's because I was hungry. The skillet is finally hot and I pour some oil in it … noticed that I put just a tad too much than I normally would. The shrimp and veggies were still frozen and thought they would be all right to cook, there was no ice on them or anything. Plus I knew (from past experience) not to mix oil and water together because it creates some interesting results (not good ones by the way).

So I grab a shrimp and slide it into the skillet, it starts to pop. Okay that’s normal because the shrimp is still frozen … fine, it’s happened before. What I wasn’t counting on was the flame that erupted from the skillet. I estimated the flame was at least 2 feet high. Our range hood is somewhat low so it scared me when the flame reached it. If our fire alarm was actually working … I think this would have set it off.



(Photo Credit: Flickr)

The picture above is just a random one I found on Flickr, but it gives you guy’s a better way to see what happened. And the flame in the pic looks about right (height wise).

I was scared out of my mind thinking that the flame would catch onto the hood and continue onto the cabinets. My initial thought was, “SHIIIIIIT! The fu*king house is going to burn!” I immediately grab the skillet off the stove and stood in the middle of the kitchen holding it. The flame diminished (thankfully) and thought my immediate problem was over. “Whew that was a close one”, I thought.

Why I did this, your guess is as good as mine, but I shook the skillet a little to move the shrimp around (bad idea by the way). As soon as I did this, another flame erupted from the skillet and this time it looked like it was about 3 feet high. So a bit frightening because it wasn’t dying down. I wanted to run over to the sink and use water to put it out … but was afraid it would make the flame bigger.

I didn’t have a stove cover near me at all and had no clue what to do. So I stood in the middle of the kitchen holding the skillet while still in flames. I was afraid that the flame wouldn’t die down and continue to grow. Thankfully … after a couple more seconds of it burning … it finally diminished and was gone. I set the skillet back onto the stove and just stood there wondering what I just did.

I almost burnt down the kitchen … AGAIN!

I could have seriously injured myself by holding the skillet the entire time of this ordeal. And lastly … I wasn’t thinking at all today for some stupid reason. Just had other things on my mind.

Oh my goodness … I shouldn’t be allowed near a stove again … ever. Thankfully the flame didn’t get out of control and nothing was damaged. Maybe my mom's favorite skillet though.