Smokey Cooking

Tonight while cooking dinner, I nearly burned down my apartment building. OK, that's a slight exaggeration, but I definitely feared setting off the fire alarm, which probably would have been just as annoying to my fellow residents as if I burned down the building.

I was cooking spaghetti, as I often do, so I put a chunk of defrosted ground beef in a pan and turned on the burner. Then I filled a pot with water and started cooking the noodles. I wandered off for a moment, checking a text on my phone while I waited for my food to cook.

As usual, the beef began to sizzle. But then, the beef REALLY began to sizzle. I suddenly realized I had turned the burner on high instead of medium and was burning my food. Soon the pan started emitting thick campfire-like smoke, and I quickly turned off the heat and moved the pan to another burner. This did not solve the problem.

With smoke now filling my entire apartment, the thought of setting off the fire alarm was hot on my mind. I grabbed the sizzling, smoking pan and ran out the front door, all the while hoping I would not hear the dreaded blaring sound signaling evacuation. My resident advisor was walking across the grass on the first floor and looked up at where I was standing on the third floor, wondering what the sizzling noise was. I yelled down to her that I was fine and just trying not to set off the fire alarm. She smiled and kept walking.

I stood out there for what seemed like an eternity before the pan finally stopped smoking. When it did, I rushed back inside, put the pan on a cool burner, and opened all the windows in the apartment. Then, I waited.

The smoke eventually cleared, and I was able to return to cooking dinner. About half of the beef was burned, so I threw that part away and continued cooking the un-burned portion. The noodles soon finished cooking, and, with no fire alarm after all, I sat down to enjoy my spaghetti.