| Fire in
the Kitchen |
| by Meg
Bailey |
| As a single
woman, I never was much of a cook when I lived in California's Silicon
Valley. But when I moved to Spetses, a small Greek island in the Saronic
Gulf eighteen months ago, it seemed a good idea to learn. It's hard for
Americans to find work here, especially in the winter when the tourist
economy suffers, so I figured if I could learn to prepare my own meals
I could save a few drachmas and eat more often. Also, options for fast
food are a little limited. Actually, we don't have any.
My friends
have all been real good about letting me come over and watch them cook.
Most families' mothers start cooking in the morning for the main, mid-day
meal. |
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| So I can go
over for a coffee in the morning, pinch their leftovers from the hot meals
they cooked the day before (one friend has a microwave!), and sit
at their kitchen tables while their kids are in school, sipping my coffee
with my chin in my hand while I watch them work.
After about
a year of this careful process of thoughtful observation, I decided to
try it myself. My first dinner would be baked chicken with fresh, homemade
olive oil, lemon, garlic, onions, and potatoes. I think the whole meal
cost me about 2500 GRD (about $6 US). My friend, Margaret, showed me how
to do it, even miming the parts I didn't understand. She made it
look pretty easy, but then, with a Greek/British family of five and 20
years on this island, she's got some experience on me. Her instructions
sounded pretty simple. Pour in some olive oil, dump in all the stuff, sprinkle
on some salt and pepper, and have a glass of wine or two (or three) while
the whole thing cooks.
"Well, hell,
a monkey could do that with one arm tied behind its back," I told her,
and set off toward home with all the ingredients, cocky with my new-found
determination. |
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| Everything
went off without a hitch. I hummed, I sang, I drank my wine, I chopped
those onions, pared those potatoes, artfully arranged the chicken pieces
in the dish, and slid the pan in to cook. I was proudly sipping my second
glass of wine, congratulating myself on my resourcefulness -- having
managed to live 45 years without ever cooking what I could call a legitimate
meal -- when I detected a strange odor coming from the kitchen down
the hall. At first, I dismissed it. Maybe that's what Greek chicken smells
like. But after an hour or so, I thought I'd better investigate.
A word about
this nonuser friendly oven. Most kitchens on Spetses don't have the generous
sized ovens we're used to in America. You know, the kind with the big old
burners on top, which are great for heating soup and making Jiffy Pop.
Then they have a cavernous area which I think you use for baking cookies
and roasting things. All I know is, they're hell to clean. |
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| And I only
know that because every time I moved to a new apartment, I had to clean
one. Of course one cleaning was all they usually needed during my tenure,
because those frozen pizzas don¹t make much of a mess. But I digress.
I cautiously
tip-toed into the kitchen with my nose leading the way. My little oven,
which is about the size of an overgrown toaster oven, has three burners
on the top and sits on a little wooden table. I opened the door,
and saw through the steam and glorious smells, my gourmet chicken dinner
cooking and crackling just as Margaret had promised it would.
But what's
this? A stream of smoke was coming from beneath the oven, and the odor
was definitely stronger now. Glancing over my shoulder, I realized the
kitchen was full of smoke. I leaned closer to the oven for a sniff. My
eyes began to water. This is the strange odor I'd smelled earlier, but
it didn't seem to be coming from the food. More curious than scared, now,
I carefully lifted a corner of the oven and looked beneath to find the
source. |
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| The entire
center of the table top -- now, I realize, made of particle board --
was a gaping, smoking, smoldering hole. Ye Gods! Do we have a fire department
on Spetses? 911? Mom? Anybody?
I thought of
dashing upstairs to ask my neighbor for help, but we're not on speaking
terms since I declined to take her advice on how tightly I fastened
my cats' flea collars.
My landlord
speaks no English and lives in Athens. Besides, he always blames me for
things that get broken (HA!) so that didn't seem like a helpful option,
either. I decided to call Margaret. It was all her fault, anyway.
Well, the first
thing you do," she instructed in her drill sergeant mode, "is you cut off
the power to the kitchen. Do you know how to do that?" |
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| "Uh .... no,"
I replied.
"You know where
your fuse box is?" she asked.
"Would that
be the box on the wall where I flip the switch for hot water when I want
to take a shower?" I asked.
"Bravo! Yes,
that's it!" she replied, now more like a caring sister than a drill sergeant.
"Flip the switches in that box until you find the one that turns off the
power to the oven."
I'm writing
this down madly. "OK," I mumble, as she continues, speaking very clearly.
"The next thing
is, get that oven off the table and put the table outside," now more like
the drill sergeant.
"But what about
my dinner?" I whined, thinking of all my hard work.
"I think your
dinner is probably done," she replied, rather smugly, I thought.
That Margaret
thinks she's so smart. Why cut the power to the oven when all
I have to do is unplug the stupid thing? I found the cord to the oven and
yanked it hard, but it wouldn't give. I was thinking about bracing one
foot against the wall and heaving with all my might when discretion got
the better of me. I got down on my hands and knees and followed the trail
of the cord from the oven to the wall and was amazed to see that the cord
was hard-wired into the tile wall! No plug, no socket, nothing. In fact,
nothing left at all to do, now, but follow Margaret's instructions. Thinks
she's so smart.
I easily located
the switch that cut the power. Then, gritting my teeth, I heaved the oven
onto the marble countertop. Not much of a feat, really, as the countertops
in my kitchen would more easily suit a person of half my height. My
three cats backed away from the conflagration. I opened the windows
and stepped back to survey the damage.
It seems the
oven had been placed directly on the wooden table, without adequate space
beneath for the heat to circulate. This would account for the fact that
my table now looks more like a scaffolding structure than anything that
would hold an appliance. I hauled the table outside in the darkness and
was horrified to see that it still glowed with burning embers. I wheeled
around and skidded into the kitchen to fill up a bottle with water, then
doused the thing nine ways 'til Sunday. Then, crisis averted, I went back
inside to enjoy my meal. And I really did enjoy it (once the smoke had
cleared)!
When my landlord
saw the charred table a few days later, he chastised me for cooking with
oil. "Just one spatter can cause a fire," he admonished. I tried to explain
what had happened, that it wasn't really my fault at all, but he wasn't
buying it. He just shook his head and told me to get some bricks to raise
the oven off the surface of the table. "Stupid American," I could hear
him saying to himself. Thinks he's so smart.
They're working
on a house right up the hill from where I live, so I snuck up there today
in the afternoon, when everyone was asleep, and I pinched four fat, new
bricks to prop up my oven. And I'm proud to say, tonight's baked imam
(eggplant) came out fine. Tomorrow: Moussaka! |
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