Lifted directly from an e-mail sent to MS, who is threatening to make me eat onions for a week straight when I visit him in Berlin:
I cooked last night, for myself. Frozen shrimp and vegetable stir-fry from Trader Joe's; when I put the shrimp in the pan, the oil caught fire and there were foot-and-a-half-high flames leaping at the stove hood. All my kitchen cabinetry is IKEA, of course, and the first thought in my head--after oh shit I'm about to lose my eyebrows--was, I bet this stuff burns really fucking quickly. My second thought was, wasn't I going to get a fire extinguisher? My third was, the smoke detector's going to go off and wake everyone up. My fourth was, maybe I'd better try to put this out, hmm?
So I blew it out, which shouldn't have worked. Went and held a cushion against the shrieking smoke detector until it shut up. Wiped the scorch marks off the stove hood. And then looked at the shrimp, still frozen together into sad translucent clumps, and wondered if I dared cook them.
I dared. At a heat so low it took about twice as long as the package suggested. But I wasn't taking any chances.
I need my eyebrows.
