Four months pregnant, with my 19-month-old son at the kitchen table eating chicken fingers, it happened. I’d been in full-on nesting mode, and no recipe on the Food Network was too big or too small. That night, I was experimenting with Sandra Lee’s corn dogs — a secret guilty pleasure for both my husband and me. Just like Sandra Lee instructed, I filled my pot with oil, and while it was heating up, I put the batter together for the hot dogs.
“Mommy,” my son called for me, so I walked across the kitchen to tend to him.
By the time I got back to the gas stovetop, the oil was smoking. This was not part of the recipe — the oil did not dare smoke for Sandra Lee. I lowered the burner, but it was too late. The pot caught fire and I stood before it, helplessly watching as the flames grew higher.
I didn’t know what to do. Things don’t catch fire on cooking shows. The firefighters later told me that I should have placed something on top of it, like the pot’s cover, or doused it in baking soda, anything to deprive the flames of oxygen. But I didn’t know that at the time.
My mind went blank, but my body took over. I grabbed the CO2 extinguisher that my brother had given me from under the sink. I lifted it (it was heavier than I expected) and realized that I didn’t know how to use it. Hands shaking, I could barely focus as I read the directions. They were simple: remove the pin, squeeze. I did just that, and the fire went out. I took a breath that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, but then the fire popped back up. I put it out. It started once more. As many times as I extinguished it, it lit back up again and again. I couldn’t get it to go out and stay out.
So, I did the one thing that you are not supposed to do when you have a grease fire. I poured water on it. My thinking was simple: The oil was hot, and water would cool it down. But water has the opposite effect on a grease fire. It doesn’t put it out. It makes it blaze out of control.
The flames raced up the hood, incinerated the surrounding wood cabinetry, and scorched the ceiling of my kitchen. I screamed out loud, unable to contain my fear. I held on tight to the fire extinguisher and squeezed one final time. This time, I didn’t let go. I squeezed the lever with all of my strength until the flames finally subsided.
The next night, with the kitchen still smelling like smoke, we ordered in a pizza. We did it again the next night. And the night after that. I couldn’t get myself to cook again for over a year.
That may sound lovely to some, but not for me. I loved cooking. I found it to be calming, therapeutic and just plain fun. It was a great way to wind down after a long day of working, and an outlet for my creative side.
Cooking made me feel closer to my mother, my mother-in-law and my grandmothers. These women had started a tradition of family dinners, making holidays special, and I wanted to continue that. It was what I had always envisioned for myself. Continuing a proud family legacy.
But I couldn’t do it anymore.
The fire consumed my thoughts. I could barely look at the cooktop without having flashbacks, recalling how quickly the fire spread, wondering why I hadn’t just grabbed my son and run out of the house. Every night, I had vivid nightmares. I dreamed that the flames had been bigger, higher, that my son and I hadn’t been able to get out, that I lost the baby I was carrying.
I would wake up with a thin layer of sweat covering my face, and my husband would hear me startle awake. “You’re O.K.,” he would say, rubbing my back. “Everything’s O.K.”
“We could have died,” I’d say. “You didn’t,” he would tell me. “Everything is all right now. You never have to cook again, if you don’t want to.”
I couldn’t talk to anyone about how I felt. I was embarrassed to divulge that I was afraid to cook. I was ashamed to say that I had accidentally set my kitchen on fire. Humiliated that I was making corn dogs in the first place.
As my son got bigger, I pushed him to do things he didn’t want to do — drop-off at nursery school, going to a birthday party where he didn’t know a lot of the children, or even a swim in the pool. Why couldn’t I push myself?
Whether it was brussels sprouts or the soccer team, I always told my son: “Try it. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to do it again.” I applied the same rationale to my fears. I would try to get myself into the kitchen. If I didn’t like it, I could have a pizza at the house in 20 minutes.
I began with the oven. I bought prepared foods at the market — an already cooked and seasoned rotisserie chicken, grilled fish with a dipping sauce on the side, premade meatballs that just needed heating. But I couldn’t get myself to the stovetop.
My husband had no such problem. He made pancakes every Saturday morning, just as he always had. He scrambled eggs whenever my son asked. I was glad that someone was making good use of our kitchen.
And then, one afternoon: “Mommy, will you make me a grilled cheese?” As I puzzled over ways to make it without using the stovetop — would he notice if I microwaved it? — I looked at my son’s face. His big blue eyes and his open smile. This was why I loved cooking. This was what I’d been missing. The chance to make something for my son. To show him how much I cared by making something delicious for him, just like my mother had for me. Just like my grandmother had done for my mother.
My heart seized as I turned the knob to heat up the pan. The butter sizzled as I put it onto the hot stainless steel, and I jumped back involuntarily. But as I assembled the bread and the cheese, I found my rhythm. I flipped the sandwich until both sides were a golden brown, the cheese melted in between. I put it onto a plate and cut it into triangles. I brought it to the table and asked my son: “What else can I make you?”