#the only damage is that we had to replace all the burner liners again

[energon-with-a-curly-straw]

Salted peanut caramel squares. I’ve made them many times; a baked pretzel crust, sprinkled with peanuts, a layer of caramel, topped with more peanuts. It can be a bit of a dice roll how hard or soft the caramel layer turns out, but they’re tasty and a hell of a lot easier than my 7 layer candy bars.

The bottom layer is out of the oven. There was a miscommunication on whether I needed mom to make the caramel, but I clear that up and get to work. There’s a pot and thermometer already out. I had been planning to use a bigger saucepan, but I figure mom knows what she’s doing so it’s probably fine. The ingredients are in and I turn on the burner.

It’s important to mention that it has been a few years since I’ve done this; sometimes things get muddled in my brain. I turn the burner to 8 until the butter is melted, than put it on high. Hey, don’t fucking do this, by the way. This is a recipe for severe burns.

It’s boiling. It’s spilling over the sides as I stir and dripping down onto the element. There’s smoke, and a little bit of fire, but nothing that can’t be handled. The caramel still hasn’t reached the desired temperature- sometimes you need to tap on the thermometer top to get the needle to move, but even then we’re still only 4/5th of the way there. My dad is by my side, wiping away the drips with a wet cloth before they fall. It’s looking a bit darker than it should. Dad grabs a digit meat thermometer from the drawer. You can feel the anticipation in the air.

Fuck. The old candy thermometer is off by a fair amount. Plus, it turned out I’d mixed the oven temperature for the candy temperature (who puts the oven temperature in both Celsius and Fahrenheit?), so it would have been wrong no matter what. I can’t use this on the bars. I tell dad to grab a baking sheet and line it with parchment paper. Now. He’s concerned it’ll burn through the paper- he’s looking at the box wasting precious time we don’t have, while I stand there desperately stirring a bubbling pot of burning sugar. I pour the contents onto the sheet, trying to spread it out on the paper before it hardens.

‘Oh, haha,’ you say. ‘A bit of impromptu toffee with a slightly smoky flavour? Jolly good.’ No- I’m not done.

We open the window and take a breath. The toffee itself isn’t bad, but we should definitely throw out the old thermometer. Whether we can save the pot is still undetermined. We hear sirens in the distance. We joke it’s the firetrucks coming for our smoky cooking. The sirens are getting louder, they keep starting and stopping. Flashing lights are coming down our street.

It’s a fucking Santa parade. Apparently one that no one in the village knew about. It’s three or four firetrucks and a handful of cars decorated in Christmas lights. Santa is sitting on top of one of the trucks, and I think I recognize him as the fire chief. Wild, but okay, the fire station is pretty close. I think they were doing something for essential workers the other day, so maybe it’s related?

We have a good laugh; a funny little story. Yeah, we’re not done yet.

I’ll remake the caramel after dinner. We wipe down the stovetop and yield the kitchen to mom. We’re having homemade mac n cheese. I’m sitting in the room other, playing animal crossing. Something’s burning. Flames rise from burner liners- a small amount, but more than with the caramel. This one isn’t even my fault- apparently baked on coconut milk is super flammable. The fire alarm goes off. The next burner, the one beside the one I’d used earlier, begins emitting a great deal of smoke. I can see the firetruck parade out the kitchen window behind us.

Dad throws a cup of water in the flaming burner, wiping the smoking element with a wet cloth. Mom’s battling with the smoke alarm, which annoyingly keeps turning itself back on. We’re opening windows to clear out the haze that lightly blurs my vision. I can see the Christmas lights and sirens between the houses in the subdivision right behind us, all the while we desperately pretend we are not having a fire.

There’s just something so accurate a description of my life right now as having unintentionally made the best (and most dangerous) toffee brittle of my life that is completely impossible to replicate, with three separate kitchen fires, while my tiny town’s fire department flashes in the background, decked out in lights for a parade no one was expecting or prepared for.