I’m cooking the remnant of our chicken wings from Saturday. The sauce is a super-simple Buffalo sauce (mix a few tablespoons of cider vinegar into melted butter). When the wings come out of the deep-frier, I fry them in the sauce for a few minutes. On Saturday I decided against using the wing tips, but after some discussion I have decided to leave them on today.

We have some asparagus from who-knows-when that I’ll be throwing in the fryer as well. Not sure how that will turn out.

That was the plan. As I was writing about dinner, reality was quickly changing. I had the stove turned up higher than on Saturday and was using leftover oil. When I returned to the stove to check how hot the oil was, I found a roiling black sludge. Curious whether this was just a discolouration on the lid or something more serious, I took the lid off for a closer look. The oil started smoking, then burst into flames.

When the fire alarm started ringing, it became clear the pot had to be taken outside. We took it down the stairs and were letting it cool on the sidewalk in front of our apartment when some firetrucks pulled up outside. After explaining what had happened, the firefighters brought a fan upstairs to blow some of the smoke out. Uptown 21 is closed on Mondays and the control panel for the alarm is inside the restaurant so we had to wait for someone to come deactivate the alarm.

She eventually showed up, the alarm was deactivated, and the oil went down the toilet. Our next attempt turned out (with constant supervision) much better. The wings were a success, the deep-fried asparagus quite unappetizing, and the potatoes acceptable.