Burning Brightly

So today I am pretty tired and pretty busy. I was up at 5am. Must make it through work. Then I must prepare a dinner for Sister Suarez. A broken ankle.

I come home at lunch (because I was at TJ--Thomas Jefferson Elementary School). Chop onions, garlic, carrots, and celery. Hope the scent of the onions and garlic on my hands will not repulse the third graders I am working with. Saute in olive oil and leave it. Go back to TJ.

Come home after school. Reheat sauted vegetables, add tomatoes, herbs and simmer my marinara sauce. At the same time proof yeast, then make Italian bread dough. As it kneads in my KitchenAid, I sit down for a few minutes to check bread recipe.

Then when sauce has simmered, begin with the pasta. Cook box of pasta while rolling out bread dough. Make three long loafs. Cover and let them rest on my pizza peel.

Drain pasta. Begin second box of pasta. (Yes, I should have boiled it all together in one pot, but I just wasn't committed to making that much pasta when I started.) Combine sauce, pasta, and mozzarella, Parmesan, Asiago, and Romano. Put Ziti in oven.

Slash bread loaves with my lovely new lame. Brush with egg white. Spray with water. Take Ziti out. Put bread in on pizza stone. Spray oven with water to create steam. Set timer for three minutes.

Remove second pot of pasta. Drain it. Spray loaves a second time. Set alarm again.

Then the smoke alarm goes off. A frequent occurrence since we have replaced the smoke alarm. It is very sensitive. Daniel, in the family room, turns off alarm.

Begin combining pasta, sauce and cheese for two smaller pans of Ziti to freeze. Spray bread the third and final time.

"Mom," Daniel says, "There's a fire."

"I know. I know. Some crumbs must be burning in the bottom of the oven," I reply.

"No, Mom." Daniel is insistent. "There's a fire."

I look. I have learned to trust my seventeen-year-old. He is frequently more perceptive than I.

Daniel is right. Yes. There is a fire. A real fire. It is flaming high. It is flaming bright. There is a beauty in the bright orange flame lapping at my towel on my cooktop. I had forgotten to turn off the burner.

A greasy dishtowel--I had used it to cover my orange rolls last night, all four dozen made the night before for Relief Society anniversary dinner--was next to the burner. The dishtowel, which, of course, I should have washed by now, must have fallen onto the burner.

We maneuver the dish towel outside. We pour water on it, hoping to get the flames out before the deck is damaged. The dishtowel is black. It is really burned. But the flames go out. Wet black char and white crumpled towel sit outside the patio doors.

I will miss that dish towel. One of those flour sack dish towels. One that is perfect for covering rising rolls and bread. One that has come to me from my mother's kitchen. One that someone (not me) has taken the time (in the days of Relief Society bazaars) to embroider a pretty lady with a full red skirt. I will miss that dish towel the next time I need to cover my orange rolls.

But what I will really miss is Daniel. How can I let my baby go to college. Who will tell me that my kitchen is on fire when he is gone?

I will miss him.