I'm Melting

I don't know what it is with our family, but we have a thing about melting stuff.  You might remember my post about the kleenex box and the light bulb in our garage. http://groovytuesdays.blogspot.com/2010/02/hero-and-fool.html  Well, this time it's our favorite stainless steel barbecue pan and spatula.   It's the pan in which I cook vegetables, make meatballs, fry bacon and more.  I use it ~ or rather used it almost every day ~ until it fell victim to benign neglect.

We didn't mean to murder our pan.  It just got finished making a marvelous stew for lunch, which we ate down to the last drop.  And that's where the trouble started.  Whoever took the final scoops didn't take the pan off the barbecue (which had been turned off but was still hot).  That was understandable as the pan was too hot to pick up so it was left to cool down ~ but unfortunately the lid to the barbecue was closed on top of it.  And so the path to destruction was set.

The meal was enjoyed and the poor pan forgotten ~ until the next time we went to barbecue.  I didn't look for the pan right away so there it sat, inside the barbecue, with no one peaking inside for extra measure, and the gas was lit.  By the time I came outside to cook, dense smoke was wafting up from under the lid.  That would be the black spatula handle that literally melted over the edge of the pan like a Dada-esque clock.  To my horror, the spatula had literally fused itself to the pan forever! 

 I mean, really!  You would think that we learned our lessons about burning and melting stuff after the near miss with the light bulb.   I guess it can happen to anyone but the facts are clear = take the pan off the grill, clean your dishes and don't light the barbecue until you've looked under the hood.  There's a greater life lesson in all this but I'm still too bummed over the loss of my pan and spatula right now to think about what that might be.