Brutkey

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

food

I wanted to try making a fried tofu recipe, but I've never deep fried anything before. A friend gave me an old plug-in fryer that has been sitting on top of my fridge for a couple of years, so I thought I'd try it.

It beautifully fried 3 batches of tofu. But while batch 4 was frying, I heard a soft "pop" and realized I could see orange flickering through the plastic outer casing of the fryer.

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

I immediately unplugged it, but the indicator light wouldn't turn off. I realized that was because it was lit by FIRE.

I (somewhat) calmly asked my kid to open the door, got hot pads, and carefully carried the whole fryer out onto the porch, as more and more plasticky smoke poured out.

I ran back inside and grabbed a box of baking soda, and dumped a large clump of it onto the fryer as flames licked through the melting plastic.

There were multiple very upset cats watching at this point.

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

Hooray for baking soda! (I also have a fire extinguisher, but I figured I'd try that only if the much-easier-to-clean-up baking soda didn't work)

And while all this was happening, my partner was trying to find one of our dogs who ran off (she came back a little later in the evening). And that was only a small portion of the drama for the day!

Prof. Sam Lawler
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social

You know who doesn't get stressed about things catching on fire or writing documents or tractor problems or compost piles? Goats. Because goats are doing it right.