With two data points I am ready to conclude that soup will be the death of me. The first instance was chronicled in a previous blog entry. Essentially as I was boiling water for pasta, one of the burners on my stove got stuck in the on position, filling the room with gas. Disaster was averted by turning off the gas behind the stove. With a large pot of hot water, I decided the only viable option was to make soup. I had already chopped garlic and opened a few cans of chickpeas... so I mixed it all together with some extras and made a soup. Perhaps the soup didn't cause the catastrophe but it was certainly in the picture.
Last night I gathered a second data point. I was attempting to make my mothers Tuscan Bean soup, which I posted about a few days ago. Everything was going well (I used Kale which was super yummy) until I heard my fire alarm. This was rather unfortunate because it was already 1am, and one of my roommates was in bed and asleep. I felt horrible that my cooking had triggered the alarm. But I also was confused -- I couldn't smell and smoke and the soup seemed to just be simmering. Upon further inspection of the smoke detector I realized the alarm was no for smoke -- it was for CO (carbon monoxide). What???? Why would the CO alarm be going off?
Not sure what to do, I opened as many windows as I could around the apartment and turned on the ceiling fan. Still, the alarm continued. Luckily my pressing the silence button I could get the alarm to turn off for a few minutes at a time. After about 15 minutes the alarm was going strong, so I decided to turn off the stove and even turn off the gas line behind the stove (this was a tough decision considering that my soup was not quiet done). I feared the stove was expelling CO, or that the flame was not burning efficiently. But again, no effect.
By this time I was starting to feel a little woozy. Perhaps it was the CO or perhaps it was a combination of staring up at the fire alarm while the fan make periodic motions... but I was worried.
I knocked on my roommates door (the one who was not sleeping) to let her know about the alarm. Then I decided action was needed. I placed a call to 911 and they directed me to the local fire station. In under 5 minutes 4 firemen were at my door! They came inside and checked out the CO alarm. Their own CO meters registered no CO --- a false alarm and a malfunctioning CO detector! I thanked them and after they left managed, with some difficulty, to remove the battery from the alarm so I could go to sleep.
I finished the night by completing the soup. Again, perhaps the soup did not play a role in the catastrophe, but it was certainly there watching.
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