No fireworks, but we had the fire!

Yes, you read that correctly. B. and I did celebrate the 4th of July with some fire, just not the kind you would hope for. Instead of the fire in the sky, it was a fire in our oven.

B. is an excellent and very creative cook and was attempting to make us pork medallions with a soy sauce and orange juice glaze accompanied by a side of fresh green beans. While he was prepping all of his ingredients he came up with the idea to add crushed, roasted walnuts to the green beans. So he spread the crushed walnuts onto a cookie sheet and put them in the oven for a few minutes. We tested them about ten minutes later and the flavor was definitely richer, but they weren't quite as crunchy as we had thought they should be, so we decided to briefly broil them. (Cue ominous, foreshadowing music)

What I had forgotten (and what B. didn't realize would be the eventual downfall) was that he had sprinkled some brown sugar on the walnuts. So I'm in the living room and I hear a fairly casual "uh-oh." I go into the kitchen and ask what's wrong. "The nuts are on fire." Again, I'm thinking "fire" in that way where the little piece of food at the bottom of your oven catches on fire and burns out. Then he opens the door and FLAMES burst out!

This begins a very fast-talking coversation about strategy. B. tells me that his plan is to take the cookie sheet out, walk quickly across the kitchen and dump the flames and walnuts into the sink (which is already full of dishes). "What?! No! You're going to catch the kitchen on fire! Use the fire extinguisher." "No, that'll ruin the whole inside of the oven." These two basic trains of thought continue on and I begin to cave on my fire extinguisher stance a little when he opens the oven door again and the flames are much larger, much more violent, and are actually shooting out of the oven now!

But my darling engineer fiancee is still not convinced of the fire extinguisher idea! I quickly point out that the cookie sheet is the kind that has no edges and he has dumped entire meals off of the cookie sheet when it wasn't on fire. In addition, there is an entire garbage can of paper products in the way and the sink is full! Mind you, the kitchen is rapidly filling with smoke and there is no time for logic, now we're just panicking. "Use the fire extinguisher!! I'll clean the oven, you're going to burn the house down!"

So he did finally grab the little kitchen extinguisher and fire two short blasts into the oven and the fire was immediately out. Of course, the smell of the house is still not back to normal and may not be for quite some time, but the house is still here, so that's all that matters. And the inside of the oven is not nearly as bad as you might imagine, so that's a nice bonus.

We were very surprised to learn that two tiny blasts were enough for the extinguisher to register "empty," so there isn't quite as much room for air pressure in there as you would imagine. And B. did finally admit through a sheepish grin that the flames really had gotten out of hand and did need the extinguisher and not the sketchy "run to the full sink while jumping over the pile of paper" plan. So anyway, no fireworks for us, but B. did cook the meal (sans walnuts) about an hour later and it was absolutely amazing. Happy 4th!