on kitchen mishaps

I come by my kitchen abilities naturally. Not from famous chefs, but grandmas. Mom's mom is known for her ability to make entire meals without measuring; Dad's mom is known for her kitchen creativity and substitutions.

This made today interesting. Jesse and I were up early again (yay jet lag!) and after some more kitchen-organization, I decided to make pancakes for breakfast. It went relatively well. We sat down to eat them, poured tasty maple syrup on them, and went to town. Long, gross story short - we neglected to verify the mold-status of the maple syrup prior to slathering it on our pancakes. So the initial pancakes were tossed and we split the remaining 3 pancakes.

Jesse met up with a man from church, who graciously brought along a trailer to haul over the opp shop furniture. They also picked up a love seat, so we are now the proud owners of a couch and love seat (which we febrezed and covered) and a wooden armoire in desparate need of a new finish and new handles. But the price was right.

I digress from the mishaps. We were going to go out to lunch, when jet lag slapped me in the face and told us we were going to stay home. I rested for a bit, then Jesse and I warmed up something small for lunch. No mishaps there, other than not being able to go out.

We had yet another shopping trip this afternoon, and more settling in of stuff. We did our first 'real' grocery run (for which we forgot the list we'd meticulously put together), which was fun and exhausting. For dinner, I made burgers, potatoes, and steamed veggies. All went well until I was frying the potatoes (which I crinkle cut with my pampered chef gadget) in the meat fat and set off the smoke detector. After dinner, I set to muffin-making, only to determine that neither of us could discern just how to light the oven. Several failed attempts, 2 phone calls, and a visit from the friendly landlord later, we were in business. I put the muffins in only to set off the smoke alarm again. Not really sure why that happened.

At any rate, the muffins are now cooling, and I'm watching Jesse play Lego Star Wars on the Wii. Here's hoping the everyday cooking won't be quite so adventuresome.