The Story of the Phantom Roommate and the Dinner that Almost Wasn't

Welcome to my world all. This is my first attempt at blogging, which is bound to be pretty much amazing. As I am a structure queen, I thought about trying to pick a theme or topic my blog should be about. Cooking? Pedicures? My life that is "Devil(s) Wears Golf Shirts on Fridays" perhaps? More likely than not, a main feature will be what I'm eating. And drinking. Most likely wine will be involved. Often.

I live in a huge apartment. Huge. Seriously. And up until last weekend, I had the perfect arrangement. I moved into my apartment last November but my roommate has never actually lived here - she's been living with her boyfriend the whole time. Until last Friday when they broke up.

Oy vey.

Cooking for me is a bit of a therapy session and I've been super stressed out the last few days between work and her moving back in, so I decided to make myself a nice dinner and wind down a bit. What's the saying about good intentions? Something about hell? Well if hell is the smoke alarm going off and the death of my sauce pan, well yeah, that's about right.

Generally I am quite good about multitasking while cooking - whisk in one hand, submersion blender in the other while 2 other pots are happily bubbling away. Tonight it was too much to take. I started my broth and lemon zest infused rice on the back burner and turned my attention to the almond slivers toasting and the mushrooms that needed a quick cleaning and slicing. I thought it smelled like the almonds were cooking too fast, so a quick toss and I went back to the fungi. I smelled the smell again and, thinking that slight burned smell was the nuts, gave them another quick toss and went about the task of finding something to put them in so I could start on the chicken. Almonds out, chicken in, and the smell was still there. I assumed a sliver of almond was still stuck in the pan.

And then I smelled smoke.

And then I saw smoke.

And then I pulled the lid on my rice pot.

I'm pretty sure when I put the rice into the pot, it wasn't the color of charcoal. Let's all take a moment to remember the short life but loyal service of my sauce pan. < > Ok, thanks.

The chicken, on the other hand, was quite tasty, if I do say so myself.