WE96: BURNT OFFERING UNTO THE UNIVERSE

It just seems as though @galenkp knew that just one of these prompts would not be enough for me, hence the need to give the opportunity for more than one. But, I guess, this is just enough for me cos it meant a lot..😂

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Burning Food: Have you ever set fire to your kitchen, burned your food, yourself or generally messed up in a major way whilst cooking. Tell us about your worst personal cooking experience, the disaster-zone experiences.

To start with...

Growing up, my mother was, most of the time, preparing food for the family. We, the children only usually help out. She never allowed us to cook for the family or my dad, especially. It was only when my dad was not around, that was when she allowed us to do more than just washing dishes. When I was much younger, because all of us were boys - my younger sister had not yet arrived then - we were not really introduced well into the world of cooking and its creativity. But later on in life, she was already making us do family dishes and all that. Although, not still independently, she would be there almost every time checking and dishing out comments, because I guess she didnt entirely trust our culinary skills.

I could recall there was a day, this time I had graduated from high school and was home awaiting admission to higher institution, my mother had travelled early. My dad was away to work far away from home, my bothers were in school so it was just I and my little sister at home. But before she left, I was half-awake and I knew she gave me an instruction to prepare stew for the next day. But I didnt remember till late in the evening.

But somehow, as a man I am, I got the needed spices -the pepper, tomato etc., ground them using a blender and it was the time to cook the stew. At this time, it was already late in the night. You may be wondering the period of time, you know, boys play a lot...you get? My mum, later on, called that she won't be able to come home that night until the next day. I thought, "So, the house is mine tonight!"😁

I put the pot on fire and added the blended spices and the ingredients at once because I had no patience in the kitchen. You know, no time to check time at all stuff. Then, boom! The power was restored, you should see happiness everywhere in the neighbourhood. You know when you live in a place riddled with advanced epileptic power supply. Immediately, I switched on the TV and played one good movie then. I cannot even recall the movie precisely. Here, I had not gotten a phone so I stuck with the movie.

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Man, the next thing I knew was that I was woken up by a choking smell and I saw smoke. I thought it was a dream, and funny me, tried sleeping back. Alas! My brain jolted, remembering that I had put something on fire the night before. This was around 2 am..the pot had been on fire for close to 3 hours!. I staggered to the kitchen with little vision, switched off the cooking gas supply, opened all the windows, checked on my sister, and started thinking about life. Life, as in, how I got the whole house in flames risking a fire disaster, wasted the whole stew that at could have been the talk of the town, etc.

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I had to use my little savings to buy another set of spices early in the morning to cook before my mother arrived at least to alleviate the beating I could receive. Because I knew all hell could be let loose when she comes and finds out. But I must confess, that pot's life was never the same again. As I had to put water in the pot and place it outside for several days for the hard burnt offering inside to soften enough to be washed. After getting it cleaned and all, the pot was leaking and that was the end of that pot.

Dear reader, you can also put in your entry for the weekend engagement here.