Wednesday, January 19, 2011

What a Pickle!


Literally! I got myself into quite the pickle tonight (or this morning; however you want to look at it!). Let's preface this by saying that I have been quite sick all week. I haven't had much of an appetite for anything other than water and crackers. So, fast foward to 2am-ish today and I was absolutely starving!! Since I discovered a fairly healthy recipe for fried pickles the other day, I thought I'd give it a shot. Why not? I couldn't breathe through my nose or sleep anyways!

I am MORTIFIED! Let's just say different oils have different boiling points! I mixed up my batter and fixed the pickle chips up to put into the boiling oil (keep in mind that I didn't even have it on high). As soon as my pickles started to boil (and despite me having the vent on high), things started to smoke quite a bit and then I hard the ear piercing scream of my fire alarm! I live on the second floor of my apartment complex. I have neighbors above and below me as well on the back side of my unit and on the left of me- that's neighbors directly on 4 sides of me. The apartments in this complex have multiple sprinklers and fire alarms. Speaking of fire alarms, the apartment complex tested them all last week; somehow though, my unit was skipped over- well; the good news is that now I know mine work too!

My first thought (being sickly right now in addition to tired and hungry), was to pour some of the oil down the drain - I had left the water on a bit since I had just washed my hands and I didn't even think about it- soo dumb!! Oil + Water = SMOKE! The fire alarms started screeching even more!! I was praying to God that the sprinklers wouldn't turn on (or the alarms in the other apartments). I honestly half expected a phone call from the apartment complex super or a fireman at my door. I was freaking out! I finally switched burners with the half empty pot of oil and put a cover on it- I opened my balcony door, turned the fans on in each bathroom and left the vent on over the stove. Almost 45 minutes later and my apartment is much less smoky! As far as the fire alarms go- thankfully, the sprinklers never went off and the alarm turned off after I got the situation under control (much to my relief!). For the record, the ceilings are 9' here and even on a step stool, kitchen counter, or my table, there's no way I could reach them to shut them off myself; I'm glad they went off! (I guess they're able to detect the amount of smoke in the air and alarm accordingly? No clue!)

The good news is -my fried pickles turned out lovely, my fire alarm does indeed work (I hope my neighbors slept through it!), and at least the sprinklers did not go off, or a fire truck show up over this-I would have just died had they showed up and evacuated over something like that- could you imagine? Does that even happen?? Anways, I'm glad that did not happen tonight. Hope you lovely readers had a good laugh and my goofy expense!

(Yummy Homemade Fried Pickles! I may have set every damn fire alarm off in my apartment in the process of making them, but it was oh soooo worth it!)

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