Cocinar Con Miguel*

On Friday night I whipped up quite the feast. I had salad (in a bag), an artichoke with butter (margarine), and pan fried, seasoned, wild turbot (pre-seasoned and frozen in a bag from Trader Joes). I made it all myself AND it tasted good.

I measured out my oil and put it in the pan to pre-heat. As the oil started to smoke I put the fish on and turned on the oven hood fan. The smoke continued to spread through the kitchen as my fan began to make a horrible inward sucking fart sound. I had neglected to remove the saran wrap I use to keep the offensive cooking smells from upstairs from invading my space through the vent. In order to remove the plastic wrap I had to unscrew the vent cover, so I reached into my junk drawer to get my Swiss army knife. As I rushed to unscrew the vent I got a little more motivation from my smoke alarm whose sole purpose in life is to warn my neighbors that I'm cooking something. Within about a minute I had the vent uncovered and sucking, my microwave timing the fish, and my smoke alarm on silent mode and tucked safely under my comforter in my bedroom.

With the turbot well on its way to becoming food, I started on my artichoke. Easy enough, just put it in a little bowl with some water, cover, and microwave for 5 minutes. The artichoke cooking went smoothly apart from a slight steam burn when I removed the cover.

With the artichoke and fish both done I scooped some margarine into a little cup for dipping and put in the microwave for 40 seconds. The margarine itself came out fine, but its lid suffered some injuries. Here's a cooking tip: Don't set a plastic lid on a burner cover. Burner covers sit over open flame and are hot. Hot things melt plastic. There, I've now imparted all my cooking knowledge.

Looking back over my evening a theme emerges - covers, both good and bad. The bad: My vent cover, the artichoke cover, and the margarine lid. The good: The covers of my bed who valiantly make sure that my smoke alarm doesn't go off twice during the same cooking session**.



*I'm sure the title of this post translates to me being used as an ingredient or something.

**It stays under my covers until I go to bed, stretch out my legs, and find it lurking there all cold and plastic. Then it spends the night on bedside table and goes back up in its holder first thing in the morning. Such is the life of a smoke detector in my house.