Good Morning.
On Wednesday night I burned my peas. My Chicken Parmesan was baking in the oven, and I had made the very difficult decision not to have a starch and had opted for a green vegetable. I chose peas over my favorite Brussels sprouts that would require my standing at the stove and stir frying them, and I thought those lovely peas were simmering on low heat when the phone rang. The call was from a friend I hadn't talked to in years and so what if my peas got a bit overdone. Forty minutes later there was an unmistakable smell accompanied by a sound best described as alarming. I went to the kitchen and grabbed the pan off the burner with the phone still in my other hand. It was a wonderful pan, a heavy pan that now contained a mess of tiny, shriveled up blobs of green and black stuck to a charred bottom.
After the phone conversation, I scraped the pathetic remains into the garbage and filled the pan with dish soap and hot water, but smells latch onto anything made of natural materials, and this particular one drifted around the house and seemed to invade every square inch of everything. I watched the ten o'clock news, let the dog out, brushed my teeth with something minty, and washed my hands with a liquid soap infused with grapefruit. I climbed into bed and somehow fell asleep quickly but woke up at 3:40 and uttered a word or two about what I smelled and it wasn't mint or grapefruit.
When I got up in the morning, I drained the pan soaking in the sink and threw some baking soda in it. It did no good. I made coffee. No good. I sprayed Windex around with abandon. Briefly helpful but ultimately unsuccessful. My left knee was hurting so I massaged a generous amount of Icy Hot into it. Now I had a combination of burnt peas and locker room, and I don't recommend it. I opened the kitchen windows, but it was 29 degrees out so that wasn't a long-term solution. My attitude
deteriorated even more when I realized my groceries would be delivered at one o'clock and I just couldn't have the delivery guy anywhere near the disaster area. I mean, here he's unloading bags with culinary items like balsamic vinegar, baby spinach, cremini mushrooms, and crumbled Feta, and I can't even fix up a pan of frozen peas without obliterating them.
I thought about lighting candles on the kitchen counters but had only unscented ones. Why? Because candles that smell like a pine forest or an ocean breeze interfere with cooking aromas that are supposed to charm and inspire the palate, so I decided to get only unscented ones for the holidays. I set the blackened pan outside the door in the snow. It didn't matter because the smell, as previously referenced, had already grabbed onto the curtains, chairs, couch, throw pillows, rugs, lampshades, shower curtain, bedspread, dust ruffle, blankets, canopy drapes, clothes, computer paper, Christmas cards, post-its, bills, and junk mail. I finally decided to smother the house with every smell I could come up with. I filled a much larger pot with water, loaded it up with cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, and set it, with fear and trepidation, on low heat to simmer. I cooked up some bacon in a skillet and sauteed a couple of fresh, minced garlic cloves in butter. My efforts were to absolutely no avail. When the delivery man arrived, he sniffed the air and I said, yeah, I burned my peas last night.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
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