Don't Try This at Home!

Some years ago (B.K. - before kids), I was alone for the weekend and decided to brew some beer. I toasted and cracked quite a mound of grains to flavor the wurt (I was making "Old Bottle Rocket Red Ale' for the 4th of July, as I recall) and put the cracked grain in a Pirex baking dish on the stove-top while I started up the water. I was butt-naked at the time, having acted on impulse on the way back from the shower.

When I turned on the burner for the wurt pot, I mistakenly turned on the burner under the back-half of the pirex dish, instead. I puttered about with other things, and then smelled something burning. I turned and moved to the stove just in time to see (and feel!) the Pirex dish explode in a blast of glass shards and grain particles, piercing every inch of my exposed body with minute shrapnel, and coating every surface within line-of-sight with dust and razor-sharp deritus!

Lucky for me that I was wearing my glasses, and had come close enough to bring my, um, delicate parts below the level of the stove-top. Unluckily for me, there I was, coated in dust, pierced by dozens of tiny slivers, many trailing rivulets of blood down my body, standing barefoot in a minefield of other slivers waiting for their turn!

I remember this feeling of exposure every time I make roux, and even though I've made roux in the nude, I bet I am much more careful than you'll ever be!

Back to Wayne's Chili page.

wallen@io.com