Maybe it was a poltergeist, or some kind of malevolent spirit. I was pretty sure that I was cursed, or to be more accurate, my pie-making was cursed. No matter how I tried I could never make a really good pie. Either I’d get the consistency of the crust wrong, or the filling would be a little off. Something would always keep me from baking a flaky, tasty pie like my Grandma McKendry could produce without turning a hair. Not even culinary school attendance lifted my “pie curse.”
But I was nothing if not determined. A few weeks ago I decided to go all out. I enrolled in a special pie-making class from the owners of the Pie Factory in Portland. (If anyone should know about pie-making it was them, right?) At the end of the class I had pies down pat. I even made my best apple pie ever, but that didn’t really count. It was part of the class, and I had the pie mistress watching and correcting my every move.
Now, however, brimming with confidence, I was ready to solo.
I was sure I was on the right track. I had mixed up the pie dough, wrapped each half of it in plastic wrap and put the halves in the refrigerator overnight as recommended. The mixed berry filling was ready (and quite tasty, if I do say so).
I turned on the oven — 400 degrees — and unwrapped one half of the dough and rolled it out. Just right. I transferred it to pie plate and trimmed it. I spooned the filling onto the plate. I was just unwrapping the second half of the dough when I noticed that I was having a little difficulty seeing. My eyes were watering.
That was because there was a pall of smoke hanging under the kitchen ceiling. I wheeled around and … the stove was on fire. Black smoke was pouring out under the oven door. The smoke detector started to scream. The phone jangled. I leapt to the oven and, hesitating only briefly, pulled open the door. Orange flames were licking up one side of the oven. Ack!
I ran around the kitchen in a tight little circle two or three times while my mind raced, trying to decide what to do. Throw water on it? Not a good idea; I’d short out whatever electronics the oven had. Use baking soda a la Mechanics Illustrated Hints Page? Good idea, but I had no idea where the baking soda was. Aha, I thought while on my third lap: the fire extinguisher.
Fire extinguisher in hand, I raced back into the smoke-filled kitchen and gave the open oven a blast. The world seemed to disappear in a haze of white powder. It was a whiteout. When I could see again, the fire was out.
I threw open all the windows and doors I could reach. I couldn’t figure out how to stop the smoke alarm so I attacked it with a broom handle until it stopped screaming. I answered the phone. It was our alarm company asking if everything was OK. I was asked for the verification code, I guess to prove that I was me and not some clever firebug standing by the phone while setting the kitchen ablaze. By then I probably couldn’t have given my name, let alone the code. Eventually I remembered it and the alarm service hung up, leaving me standing there.
I was sitting in the living room thinking unpleasant thoughts when my wife returned. “Is something burning?”
“Yes,” I said, in a calm tone that was a lie all by itself. “The oven caught on fire.”
When it was cool enough we undid the metal plate that lines the bottom of our oven: the plate that the burners heat up, which heats the oven. There, right in the middle of the oven, were two handfuls of badly burnt cat food. Yes, cat food. I hadn’t baked anything in a few weeks and an enterprising rodent had stolen food from our cat’s bowl and stored it in the inch-high space under the metal plate.
We cleaned the junk out and reassembled the oven. My pie demon was apparently alive and well. Undaunted, I finished rolling out the top crust and baked a really quite tasty pie. I thought all my demons were exorcised and at last I was a pie baker.
I was only half-right.
About two weeks later, I decided, as part of a recipe I was making, to broil some seasoned eggplant. I sliced and prepped the eggplant and turned on the broiler.
You guessed it: A minute later black smoke began pouring out of the stove and into the kitchen. No problem, I was now a self-trained, one-man kitchen fire brigade. After the fire was out, my wife and I disassembled the broiler plate in the top of the oven. No prizes for guessing what we found. There in the 1-inch space between the plate and the gas burners was another handful of purloined cat food stashed there by the demon mouse.
Enough is enough. We have now fired our cat. If anyone needs an apparently near-sighted, middle-aged, gray-striped Bengal cat we have one on offer. Will exchange, even-Steven, for four working mouse traps.
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