You hoo! Mr Fireman! I'm over here! Put me out with your hose!

Q got a cast iron grill pan for his birthday a while back. We hadn't had a chance to use it yet so we decided to try it last night. Q had bought some huge pork chops (over an inch thick) just before Christmas so we figured they'd be a good choice. "Get the pan nice and hot" he says. "Cast iron needs a lot of heat" he says. So that's what I do. Turn the burner on and leave it for a few minutes.

When everything is good and ready, he takes them out of the marinade and sets them on the grill. That's when things started going downhill. They started smoking - a lot. We live in an apartment so there's no hood over the stove, the smoke just goes everywhere. I run around the place opening all the windows and balcony door in an effort to stop the inevitable, but it was of no use. The smoke alarm went off.

Now, just to give you a little background, we have 2 different smoke alarms in our place. One belongs to the building, and one is attached to our security system. It was the security one that went off. Q reached up and took it off the ceiling and I proceeded to remove the batteries. Then I turned off the alarm. A few minutes later the phone rings, "Hi this is Chubb security, I see here that your fire alarm has gone off." I explain to him that we were cooking food and it sort of got out of hand, but everything is under control. Then he says "Ok, so should I call the fire department and tell them that it's a false alarm??"

"The fire department?" I look at Q.

"They're on their way now. Should I tell them it's a false alarm?"

"WHAT!!!!!! They're coming now?" Oh shit, "uh ya, please tell them it's a false alarm." Nice to know they're promtp. At this point Q is heading out the door to meet them out front. At first I thought is was so nice of him to do that, then I realized it was just an excuse to go down and see if there are any hot firemen. Bastard!

Anyways he met the super and a fireman downstairs and straightened everything out. Turns out the fire department was led to believe it was a panel alarm (not a private one) and consequently had dispatched 4 trucks in total. oops. Only one made it initially so thankfully it prevented other firemen from wasting their time.

In the end everything worked out and we ended up with some very delicious chopped pig for dinner. I think we'll just put the pan away until we have a house with a properly ventilated stove. Until then, George Foreman it is.