Speaking of fire, I got this gem of an email from Steve:

From: Steve Strauch
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 11:29 AM
Subject: A new recipe

My girlfriend and I made a New Year's resolution to eat in more and as a result, we've been trying to learn to cook. On Monday night we discovered this great new recipe that I thought I would share with you. Best of luck!

Kitchen Fire Pork

1. Begin cooking this recipe only after 11pm when you are tired and neighbors are sleeping
   
2. Add 1 inch vegetable oil to Dutch Oven.
   
3. Mistakenly assume that, to heat the oil to 375 degrees you must put the burner on high for say 5 or 6 minutes.
   
4. Loose track of time preparing the pork.
   
5. Do NOT stir the oil. Allow the surface tension to build as the oil below overheats.
   
6. Place pork on a cookie sheet and walk over to the burner.
   
7. Decide that you want the cookbook with you. Put the pork plate ON TOP of the Dutch Oven, cause pressure to build.
   
8. Return with the cookbook and remove the pork plate from the top of the Dutch Oven, disturbing the surface tension of the oil and injecting fresh oxygen.
   
9. Watch as a flames shoot out of the Dutch Oven.
   
10. Scream "Fire, Fire"
    
11. Irrationally think to yourself... "Since covering the pork helped cause the problem, covering the flaming Dutch Oven will make the fire worse."
    
12. Watch your cabinets catch on fire.
    
13. Run out of the apartment without your cell phone.
    
14. Try to get neighbor to call 911 while she screams at you for making her apartment smell like smoke. Repeat until she shuts up and calls 911.
    
15. Don't notice other neighbor and girlfriend re-entering apartment to try to throw baking soda on the fire.
    
16. Notice when the baking soda causes fire to flare all the way to the ceiling and said neighbor and girlfriend scream and exit the apartment
    
17. Freak out, imagining carnage scenes from Backdraft while level headed upstairs neighbor gets a fire extinguisher from building basement and puts out the fire.
    
18. Wish you were him.
    
19. Meet some cool firemen.
    
20. Call your landlord, who you called only a few days earlier to say you'd be moving out in 3 weeks. Listen to her react calmly as she weeps on the inside.
    
21. Spend next day cleaning soot, extinguisher residue off everything in the house. Enjoy scrubbing kitchen grout with toothbrush.
    
22. Be thankful no one was hurt and damage was mostly limited to kitchen.
    
23. DON'T tell your new coop community about the incident. They can vote you out.

Yes, he did indeed set his kitchen on fire last weekend. Poor Steve! I'm glad to see that he still has his sense of humor.