Burning Down the House

Joo Lin and I had a close call last night. We were attempting to cook dinner, stir fry with rice noodles, and we were waiting for the oil to heat up in the wok. I started to notice a bad smell coming from the wok so I slowly lifted the lid on the wok to notice black smoke rising out of it. I inhaled a good portion of it and lowered the lid back on the wok. Joo Lin looked at me strangely and I lifted the lid up and more smoke came gushing out. I panicked and then Joo Lin tried to get the cover off the wok while I frantically went to open the doors and windows to get the smoke out of our apartment.

After she had gotten the cover off it started to flame up. We looked at each other like we were a deer stuck in headlights. I said to her that I didn't know what to do, so we covered it up again. Then we decided to open it up again, still flames. I told her that I didn't know what to do still and she told me to get the baking soda not the baking powder on it. So I grab the baking soda frantically and proceeded to toss some on the flames. BIG MISTAKE! As it just made the flames bigger. I looked at Joo Lin who was still holding on to the lid, and we decided to put the lid back on it.

So I grabbed the lid away from her and slowly put it back on. The apartment was covered in black smoke by now, and I decided that I didn't any explosions in the apartment so I took the wok outside and placed it in an empty parking spot that was far away from any cars. I took the lid off and more smoke came out but no flames this time. Joo Lin went and got me a class full of water and while she did this I decided to pour the hot oil onto our grass outside. I then decided to put water onto the grass with the oil, BIG MISTAKE, as it foamed. I thought to myself, that this was cool and then proceed to put some water in the wok which still had some oil in it. It foamed up again. I ran back to the parking spot with the wok in hand and placed it back in the same spot as before.

To finish off this story, you would think that someone with the last name of Rice would know how to cook rice noodles. But we don't.