Today In Embarrassing News...
Not exactly today, but I didn't get around to posting about it until today. Last week when I used the oven, somehow a plastic bag clip got in there and melted. I thought I'd gotten it all cleaned but...
So on Friday, Jeff was working from home in the bedroom, with the door closed. I was planning to roast a chicken. I put the oven on 500 degrees and went back out to my desk while the oven preheated. I wasn't even aware anything was wrong until the doorman intercom buzzed. Fletcher started barking, because the intercom usually means someone is coming up. "Is there a fire?"
There was black smoke billowing out of my oven! "I think so," I said. There was no fire that I could see, but tons of the worst-smelling smoke. When I opened the oven door, there was a black puddle of plastic that had melted across the oven floor. I switched off the oven. The doorbell rang, which made Fletcher bark even harder. My upstairs neighbor was in the hall to make sure nothing was wrong. I had to step out into the hall to talk to him because the barking made it impossible to speak. I reassured him and he went back upstairs. No sooner had I closed the door, the bell rang again. It was the super and another guy with fire extinguishers!
Even after I'd sent them away, the dog kept up a ferocious stream of barking. Jeff emerged from the bedroom. "What's going on?" He hadn't heard anything except the doorbells and Fletcher's barking. He took in the scene, stared at me, and said, "I have to make phone calls" and retreated.
I set up the standing fan pointing toward the kitchen window and turned on all of the ceiling fans. Then I ran around the place spraying Lysol, including into the fans. Suffice to say there was quite a scene when Jeff came out of the bedroom again. I couldn't make anything for dinner, and the place smelled terrible. But because corona we couldn't go out. We decided to get takeout from our favorite Chinese place. But it's closed down. Instead we got food from a Hawaiian bbq place a block away. It was not good. Which didn't help the atmosphere any more than the stench did.
Yesterday I cleaned the oven, then used a paint scraper and steel wool to clean off the plastic. I ran the oven with an oven-proof dish with fresh ground coffee in it. Tonight I was able to roast the chicken.
The two good things to come out of this is that now I know there is a support system should something actually happen. The other is that the chicken ended up marinating for several days in Trader Joe's soyaki sauce and it was fucking phenomenal.
So on Friday, Jeff was working from home in the bedroom, with the door closed. I was planning to roast a chicken. I put the oven on 500 degrees and went back out to my desk while the oven preheated. I wasn't even aware anything was wrong until the doorman intercom buzzed. Fletcher started barking, because the intercom usually means someone is coming up. "Is there a fire?"
There was black smoke billowing out of my oven! "I think so," I said. There was no fire that I could see, but tons of the worst-smelling smoke. When I opened the oven door, there was a black puddle of plastic that had melted across the oven floor. I switched off the oven. The doorbell rang, which made Fletcher bark even harder. My upstairs neighbor was in the hall to make sure nothing was wrong. I had to step out into the hall to talk to him because the barking made it impossible to speak. I reassured him and he went back upstairs. No sooner had I closed the door, the bell rang again. It was the super and another guy with fire extinguishers!
Even after I'd sent them away, the dog kept up a ferocious stream of barking. Jeff emerged from the bedroom. "What's going on?" He hadn't heard anything except the doorbells and Fletcher's barking. He took in the scene, stared at me, and said, "I have to make phone calls" and retreated.
I set up the standing fan pointing toward the kitchen window and turned on all of the ceiling fans. Then I ran around the place spraying Lysol, including into the fans. Suffice to say there was quite a scene when Jeff came out of the bedroom again. I couldn't make anything for dinner, and the place smelled terrible. But because corona we couldn't go out. We decided to get takeout from our favorite Chinese place. But it's closed down. Instead we got food from a Hawaiian bbq place a block away. It was not good. Which didn't help the atmosphere any more than the stench did.
Yesterday I cleaned the oven, then used a paint scraper and steel wool to clean off the plastic. I ran the oven with an oven-proof dish with fresh ground coffee in it. Tonight I was able to roast the chicken.
The two good things to come out of this is that now I know there is a support system should something actually happen. The other is that the chicken ended up marinating for several days in Trader Joe's soyaki sauce and it was fucking phenomenal.