Fire! Fire! (Alternate Title: Let Me Eat Cake)

By Joyce Azria of BCBGeneration, via InStyle.com

In celebration of the release of The Hunger Games movie this weekend, I set my oven on fire. Just kidding! My oven did catch on fire, but it's just a coincidence.

Last night I decided to make delicious marble cake. I've been obsessing over finding the perfect not-too-sweet recipe ever since I had marble coffee cake at William's Coffee Pub, our local spot for write-ins, a while back. I turned on the oven, got out my shiny food processor, loaded up an episode of Mysterious Universe for the requisite kitchen project ear stimulation, and started getting out ingredients. (Is it wrong to talk about The Hunger Games and delicious cake in the same post? Whatever. Those of us in the first world know we basically are the Capital of Panem, right?)

Seemed the oven was taking a little too long to heat up, so I took a closer look: flames! Okey dokey no problem: perhaps there was some goo or something in the bottom. I turned it off, and the flames kept going. Snapped off my headphones, cocked an ear: there was a zapping sound coming out of the oven. Zapping, as in the kind of sound that accompanies the inevitable Jacob's Ladder in a mad scientist's laboratory.

I yelled like ninjas had just invaded the kitchen called for Dave to come give me a hand, grabbed the fire extinguisher, and emptied the whole thing into the oven while Dave went downstairs to throw the breaker. Turns out, the fire extinguisher was not necessary or useful: the fire was a result of the oven's bottom element melting through itself and making contact with the oven floor, thus creating a mighty, power-drawing, flamey circuit.

Awesome.

We've got a shiny new element waiting to be installed, but first, there is the small matter of cleaning out the oven. It's basically like somebody (me) threw a giant bucket of finely ground sand all over it. Last night, Dave and I spent a couple of hours cleaning the floors and loading up the dishwasher with all the stuff that got spritzed on, but the oven is just coated. Can you think of a better way to spend Friday night with your awesome boyfriend? No, I didn't think so.

It's going to be a while before there is marble cake.

But regardless of how the cleanup goes, I am going to see The Hunger Games tomorrow night. Can't wait.