Rice + Microwave =

Smoke & Jokes!

Don't try this at home. So on Monday night I butchered a whole chicken with my amazingly sharp new boning knife. I then made a quick marinade/sauce of soy, sesame oil, pepper paste and rice wine vinegar. I was grillin' and chillin'. Aaron came over to dine with me. The chicken was grilled to perfection.

[TIP: preheat grill to 400 degrees then turn off one part of the grill and put the chicken over that part for 15 minutes with the grill closed. flip chicken and let cook another 10 minutes. move to side with high heat to get those wonderful grill marks...this is grilling chicken to perfection. oh, take breasts off first and drumsticks off last]

The next morning of course I knew I would be taking some left overs for lunch. I pack up some chicken and realize a I need a little rice on the side. With no time to cook rice before heading into the horrors of traffic I take some uncooked rice with me. After a hard fought battle in traffic I get to the office and decide to cook my rice in the morning so that it would be waiting for me at lunch time. I set the rice for 5 minutes on high and go back to my desk. I return and set the rice to 10 minutes on 50% power. Again returning to my desk. Ten minutes later I go back to the office kitchen to retrieve my rice. Approaching the kitchen I smell something smoky...no not the lovely smokey smell of chipotle peppers. I open the microwave door to find a black smoking ball. The blue spastic top of the container melted into goo.

Did I mention this was about the time that many people were just arriving at work. Their first stop the kitchen for a little coffee. Oh my! Clean up, clean up, every body clean up. Too late the smoke had drifted all over the 8 floors of the building. The building managers came to find me feverishly trying to clean up my smoking mess. By the end of the day the the smokey odor had confined itself to the kitchen. And twenty for hours later the the aroma remains, though only in the microwave itself. And the jokes oh those linger on the mouths of my co-workers.