This really happened last night. I’ve written it as if it were a scene in the book. I need to find something better to do during my lunch breaks.
The menu was basic: Rice, meat, and a vegetable.
“Asparagus or Corn?” Mark called out.
“Asparagus,” The Laird replied.
Mark removed a bundle of asparagus and the thawed meat – marinaded pork, he thought – from the refrigerator and placed them next to the stovetop.
The trick, of course, is for everything to get done at the same time. Rice first. A half cup in the sauce pan, add cup of water, put the lid on, and onto high fire to get it boiling. Two inches of water in a stock pan, covered, and over fire to get that boiling. A splash of olive oil into the frying pan and start that heating, too.
The first surprise was that the meat was not two marinaded pork chops. It was a single thick steak. Too late for salting.
The rice boiled. Mark reduced the burner to low and set a 15 minute timer. The water for the asparagus boiled. Mark removed the lid to add salt. Water dripped from the lid onto the hot oil awaiting the steak. Mark jumped back at the hissing crackle of oil spattering away from water as it flashed to steam.
The second surprise was the pillar of flame that erupted. It burned bright yellow, a fiery cylinder the diameter of the pan from the stovetop into the exhaust fan.
Mark reached forward, lid in hand, to cover the grease fire, as one does.
He hesitated. This was the lid that had dripped the flammable water into the pan in the first place. Perhaps it was not the best idea to add more.
As Mark tried to come to grips with the idea that water could burn, the flames subsided.
The third surprise was that the rest of the process proceeded without incident.
He left the soot coated exhaust hood as a problem for future-Mark.
Marked Up 