Rotten

On Wednesday night I made carmels. It was a bit of a disaster. My candy thermometer broke, the pan boiled over, I burned myself a good one, you know, it was a basic cooking experience for me:) The Carmels taste yummy though, so it's alright. On Thursday I put some water on to boil for a potato soup I was making for dinner (Oh, it was SOOOO good, it almost make what comes next not such a big deal:) Then I got a phone call about some pictures I took last week, and I went down to my office to check something out, and then I got talking, and then I got distracted and started working on something else, and before I knew it, it was 45 minutes later and I was smelling smoke...
I rushed up stairs to see the entire kitchen filled with smoke. Flames were shooting out from under the stove top. It was a nightmare. But thanks to Ethan I am an expert firefighter and was able to put the fire out without too much damage. Once the fire was put out and things cooled down a bit I discovered that when the Carmel boiled over it went under the burner and I didn't even think of cleaning up under there. So when it got hot the it started to burn, and because it was sugar it made a TON of smoke. Yuck. I opened all the windows and turned on the fans (Can I tell you that it was 8 degrees yesterday morning!) and it cleared out the smoke, but the singed smell was still there. I decided that since it is the holidays I would mull some spices on the stove to overpower the charred Carmel. (I checked to be sure that nothing else would catch on fire first, I'm no dummy!...twice in a row anyway:) When Ethan got home from school it smelled much better, but still not great. He went to the stove, looked in the pot, and asked what I was cooking. I answered "mulling spices"
He thought about it for a minute and said, "Oh... Hey mom, does 'mulling' mean rotten?"
Yes Ethan, I'm cookin' us up a nice batch of rotten spices, Merry Christmas!