Some of you may remember the fact that very early on in this flat, I managed to remove all nose hair and eyelashes by trying to light the grill.
Today, I got it working again, because there was red pesto lurking in the fridge, I only know one thing to do with red pesto, and I didn't want to fry the peppers for the sauce when they should by all rights be chargrilled until they burn. It was a decent thing to experiment on, because I've also been eyeing a recipe card for kebabs I grabbed from waitrose and going 'hmmmm'.
However. I forgot one thing : when you have two gas rings going, one of which is cooking bacon, and the grill is going as well, and you're purposely burning the food under there, it is a wise idea to close the kitchen door. Because otherwise you set the smoke alarm off. (oddly, I didn't manage to set the one next to the kitchen off, I set the one at the end of the hall off) I have, admittedly done this once before in this flat. Both together, but different recipe.
New rule : when using the grill, close the door.
My main problem is that I was raised in a house where my father cooked. Strange and interesting things, and I'm still puzzled by the fact that though I've had no training whatsoever, I appear to have learnt all kinds of techniques by hanging around in the kitchen chatting and watching. And he had a .... rather interesting approach to the smoke/heat alarm. In that it was there to be *used*. We had the typical middle-class giant gas burner set, complete with industrial cooker hood, but ours tended to be *used*, and the time the cooker hood stopped working, the bloke who came round to service it couldn't believe the amount of gunk we had up there that he had to clean out. (I was on tea duty at the time) Pointed out that this was because we used the damn thing. And even though we used it, and immense amounts of heat and smoke used to emanate from the kitchen, Dad very rarely closed the door, unless it was for Cajun Blackened Chicken, which created smoke and poison gas and screams of 'Close the Door!' could be heard. (yes, really. The reason your eyes and throat burn when someone's cooking chillies? That's poison gas.) And thus we never actually had to test our smoke alarms, because they went off at least twice a week. I may have picked up this habit.
Ooops.
Watched half the Mckay and Mrs Miller ep so far. Am officially in love with Jeannie Mckay. Also, casting siblings as siblings works *so* fantastically, it really does, because, well, body language, and the sniping is completely natural. There's this moment where they both turn and say 'sorry' in this exact same tone that's perfection. I've only seen the casting siblings as siblings done once before, and that was the McGann clan - Paul McGann is something like the middle brother of five - and it was a drama about the early Irish rebellion. Didn't watch much of it, but the sibling dynamic was very obvious.
Today, I got it working again, because there was red pesto lurking in the fridge, I only know one thing to do with red pesto, and I didn't want to fry the peppers for the sauce when they should by all rights be chargrilled until they burn. It was a decent thing to experiment on, because I've also been eyeing a recipe card for kebabs I grabbed from waitrose and going 'hmmmm'.
However. I forgot one thing : when you have two gas rings going, one of which is cooking bacon, and the grill is going as well, and you're purposely burning the food under there, it is a wise idea to close the kitchen door. Because otherwise you set the smoke alarm off. (oddly, I didn't manage to set the one next to the kitchen off, I set the one at the end of the hall off) I have, admittedly done this once before in this flat. Both together, but different recipe.
New rule : when using the grill, close the door.
My main problem is that I was raised in a house where my father cooked. Strange and interesting things, and I'm still puzzled by the fact that though I've had no training whatsoever, I appear to have learnt all kinds of techniques by hanging around in the kitchen chatting and watching. And he had a .... rather interesting approach to the smoke/heat alarm. In that it was there to be *used*. We had the typical middle-class giant gas burner set, complete with industrial cooker hood, but ours tended to be *used*, and the time the cooker hood stopped working, the bloke who came round to service it couldn't believe the amount of gunk we had up there that he had to clean out. (I was on tea duty at the time) Pointed out that this was because we used the damn thing. And even though we used it, and immense amounts of heat and smoke used to emanate from the kitchen, Dad very rarely closed the door, unless it was for Cajun Blackened Chicken, which created smoke and poison gas and screams of 'Close the Door!' could be heard. (yes, really. The reason your eyes and throat burn when someone's cooking chillies? That's poison gas.) And thus we never actually had to test our smoke alarms, because they went off at least twice a week. I may have picked up this habit.
Ooops.
Watched half the Mckay and Mrs Miller ep so far. Am officially in love with Jeannie Mckay. Also, casting siblings as siblings works *so* fantastically, it really does, because, well, body language, and the sniping is completely natural. There's this moment where they both turn and say 'sorry' in this exact same tone that's perfection. I've only seen the casting siblings as siblings done once before, and that was the McGann clan - Paul McGann is something like the middle brother of five - and it was a drama about the early Irish rebellion. Didn't watch much of it, but the sibling dynamic was very obvious.