Exploding Cornbread

Last night as I finished up my dinner I asked “Man-child in the Promised Land” to please get me another cup of tea. I tried a new recipe last night (thanks DeeDee); it was a sort of cabbage roll dismantled. It was so good served over the sweet cornbread I made to go with it. I had one serving and was anxious to get another one, but just wanted some more tea to go with it. As is everything with a seventeen year old we then debated on the best way to make the tea. I told him to just warm up some water in microwave; keep it simple. But no “man-child in the promised land” wanted to get out the kettle and warm up the water on the stove. I have learned to choose my battles and on a Sunday evening as I finished up my homework and let my food digest I was in no mood to debate. Besides I was just happy to have something done for me without too much fuss. (it’s the simple things in life). So, I settled in with my homework to wait on my tea.

About 15 minutes later I heard a loud pop! Thinking that a dish fell from the dish dryer, I let “man-child” investigate. “MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHMM!” I heard him shout from the kitchen. When I turned the corner he was standing in the hallway with a sea of glass and cornbread around his bare feet. WTH! That’s when I noticed the smoke coming up from the burner that just a few minutes before had housed my pan of cornbread. Now in place of the dish of cornbread lay the plastic spatula (that had been on top of the pan) smoking on the electric burner. “Get some shoes on boy” I yelled as I grabbed a wet rag and swiped the burning spatula, cornbread and glass off of the burner. Then we both just stood there surveying the damage. This was worse than the time (years ago) when I was baking chicken in a glass dish and not remembering the science class about contraction and expansion, added cold water to the heated glass dish, splitting it into several large pieces and spilling its contents all over the oven. This was much worse. The Pyrex dish had literally exploded.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Uh, I musta turned on the wrong burner when I was making your tea?” he responded sheepishly.

“Uh, ya think?”

“Man-child” had put the kettle on for my tea but instead of turning on the front burner, turned on the back burner, heating up the Pyrex dish to the point that it EXPLODED all over the kitchen. Once the glass and fused cornbread cooled, we spent the next ½ hour cleaning glass and cornbread from every crevice in the kitchen, but I’m sure we’ll find some mystery piece someplace in the next day or so.

Oh and did I mention that the dinner of “dismantled cabbage rolls” had a layer of glass over it? Try as I might to I just couldn’t justify trying to save the dish and had to throw the entire pan away. Dang, all he had to do was tell me he didn’t want to eat it.

Want a little glass to go with that cornbread?