A watched pot hardly ever melts

I woke up really early this morning. Like, five a.m. early. There was this funny smell in the house, and all the lights were on and I was fully dressed, including my shoes and my work ID tag, even. I wasn't even in bed, technically, just lying there on top of the quilt, glasses on, my face resting on the book I'd been reading. Front door wide open (screen door locked, like that'll help) and all the windows wide open. Porch light on.

It wasn't light yet, of course, but what was that fucking smell? On the way to the kitchen I remember ohmygodthechickenstock! In the pressure cooker! Bloody hell! I could've burned the fucking house down! I dash out there and shut the burner off. Part of the smell is melted plastic, part of it is deeply caramelized chicken and celery and onions and carrots. I put the oven mitts on and place the pressure cooker carefully in the sink and run cold water on it to release the pressure. There's a lot of steam on account of the pan is so hot, but surprisingly there is not any pressure to release. Trepidation is what I felt while opening the lid.

I very nearly gagged at the smell, and at the sight of the wretchedly overcooked carcass in the pan, resting on a bed of gummy, nearly black vegetables. I put the lid back on and realized there was melty plastic on the stove. Thank god that at least I'd left the ceiling fan on.

What had happened was this: I got home last night and had a chat on the front porch with my lovely ex-wife about tonight's "Gumbo Aid*" event that she'd planned. She had already made two gallons of chicken stock (which was in my fridge on account of hers was stuffed full of the components of gumbo for 50 people) and needed two more. There was one more chicken left, and just enough vegetables. I'd said that I'd make another gallon tonight, and I'd use the pressure cooker so it would be concentrated enough that we could add another gallon of water when we needed to. Ordinarily I would probably have used the existing broth and cooked another chicken in it, but I chose to use fresh water. Glad I did, or I would have had to make even more this morning.

But anyway, I have a gas stove, and so I used a heat diffuser under the pressure cooker so that it wouldn't scorch (a danger with pressure cookers on gas burners. It was taking forever to come up to full pressure. "A watched pot never boils" I kept telling myself, so I went out on the porch and read for a while, and then since I don't have a sofa and my bike was in the middle of the living room blocking my chair I thought it would be fine to just lie down on the bed. I knew that I'd hear the pressure cooker when it got pressurized on account of it makes so much noise. Obviously I'm an idiot. Either I didn't hear it or it never did reach the point where it makes noise. Lucky for me that these newfangled pressure cookers have this safety feature (apparently) that melts and releases the pressure if it stays too hot for too long. Bad luck that it also allowed all the water to escape.

So, I had some breakfast and took a quick bath & went to the store as soon as it opened to get another chicken, more vegetables, etc., but this time I couldn't use the pressure cooker & I had to use my only large pot to cook the chicken stock. It turned out really well, I'm happy to report, but since my actual assigned task for this event was to cook some red beans & rice for the vegetarians in the crowd, I had to immediately wash the pan (and all the strainers & auxiliary pans I'd used while combining the new stock with what I already had in the fridge) in scalding hot water and bleach lest the organic chicken taint the vegetarian beans. As one who was a vegetarian for most of twenty years, I take this sort of thing seriously.

And then I set about making the red beans, using a spice mixture that my lovely ex-wife had prepared but which turned out to be way too spicy. The beans were in the big pot, and I'd sauteed some onions and celery and green pepper in my wok & added far too much of the spice mix, so added more vegetables, etc. Still when I mixed it a little of it with some beans it was too spicy, so I drained off the bean cooking liquid and diluted the spice mixture, straining off the excess liquid several times, and added more vegetables, and got every goddamn fucking pan and bowl in the house involved in the process.

The good news is the red beans are fabulous and so is the gumbo. There are three beautiful cakes, a case of wine, more beer than you can shake a stick at, the guests are to arrive shortly, and it's time for me to go walk the dog.

If you want to find me later, I'll be in the kitchen washing dishes and mourning the loss of my pressure cooker, which I adore not only because of its usefulness and beauty, but also because it was an x-mas gift from my lovely ex-wife.

*[Copy this idea: Invite everybody you know to come over for a gumbo party and then hit them up for donations to your favorite disaster-relief organization. Warn them that you're going to ask for money -- we got several donations already from folks who won't be able to attend.]