I Throw a Great Dinner Party

A great no-cook meal for summer nights. Or, for when your oven catches fire. 

You can find the recipe here on The Noble Pig. It's quick, delicious, and chock-full of fresh ingredients. It also requires no heat, which works for me right now because my oven is broken.

In the midst of a dinner gathering last week, I'd just hoisted a pan of italian sausages and grapesinto the oven. I'd bought everything fresh at the Co-op, so you know I was not messing around. I set out some appetizers and started to pour the wine. Suddenly, our friend spoke up.

"Why do you have a little fire in your oven?" he said. He sounded a tad delighted, like maybe this was supposed to be part of my show.

I turned to see an orange-yellow light glowing in the oven window. I flung open the door, bashing the dog on the head in the process, and saw the heating element had cracked. Sparks were shooting out of the loose ends.

Not my Co-op meat! I thought. I whipped the food out and shut off the heat. The sparks continued.

We stood around scowling and considering the oven for a minute as if it were a toddler throwing a public tantrum. This is not expected behavior. Make good choices, oven.

A smarter person, one better at thinking clearly in an emergency, might have thought to cut the power to an electric stove. But not me. I prefer to jump to the worst-case scenario. So I pulled the fire extinguisher off the kitchen wall, fumbled with it for a short eternity, and finally fired one quick blast into the oven.

Sparks still flying. I fired another blast, longer and with more gusto, to no avail. 

"That doesn't seem to be working," someone said.

I've never personally used a fire extinguisher until now, so I didn't know that even if you spray it in one specific direction, the dust of it goes everywhere. So now we had a thin film of potassium bicarbonate settling over the entire kitchen, still a fire in the oven, and we were all starting to cough from the residue. Also, my dog was cowering in the corner thinking I was about to beat him up.

Only then did we think to unplug the oven, which killed the sparks right away.

I throw a great party.

So, while I wait for my new heating element to arrive, I'll be making this avocado and bean salad by the vat. If you'd like to come over and sample it, I promise not to spray any chemicals at you. 

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Love Your Mom Like an Elevator