T+290: cooking dangerously

ever had one of those moments where you're out with friends having a good time and all of a sudden, you think you left something cooking on the stove and you have been gone from home for hours? well i have, and it was just last night.

i was at greg & saskia's for dinner (roast lamb - yum!) and as i was searing it in the pan (there's no free dinner at their house ...), i suddenly had a vision of the chicken breasts i had set on my own stove to poach earlier in the day. i was pretty sure i had turned off the flame but as i had left in rather a hurry (forgot that i had left my bike at their house the night before so instead of leaving a little early, i was actually late because i had to walk), i wasn't really 100% certain. so, out of the house i dashed to hop on my bike and nip home to check.

but where was my bike?? it was still outside their house when i arrived only a few hours earlier, but now it was nowhere to be seen. it was just like being in a nightmare. i couldn't make it up if i tried. it had definitely been locked up, but not attached to anything so i supposed that someone could have picked it up locks and all, but why? don't get me wrong, i love sparta piet but honestly, i wouldn't have thought him worth stealing, especially when he's bound with two locks (he likes it, trust me ...) saskia and greg and the dogs were all out on the street with me as well as their next door neighbors who were either just arriving home or just going out, and who suddenly said "oh, is this your bike in our house?" they had, for some unknown reason, picked it up locks and all and put it in their bike storage. granted, my bike was perhaps a bit closer to their house than to saskia & greg's but still, why on earth would someone take an unknown & locked-up bike into their house? and what if they hadn't just happened to be outside when i went to get my bike? crazy dutchies!!

anyway, in what was by this point full panic mode, i pedalled a frantic 4km in the rain back to my house. 4km that despite my heavy exertion, labored breathing and desperate pedestrian avoidal, seemed to take absolutely forever. happily, there were no flames licking the sky as i arrived. however, unhappily that also meant there were no hunky firemen milling about outside either. one can never win.

as i opened the door and raced (or as near to 'raced' as i could manage being as my legs were now quite jelly-like from the journey) up the stairs, i also could not smell burnt chicken, only the delightful aroma of perfectly poached chicken breasts cooling delicately in their broth of beer, shallots, garlic and rosemary. i promptly took the opportunity to collapse on the bed and although i really thought i might, successfully managed not to vomit. that could be tmi, but there it is anyway.

the rest of the evening was refreshingly anti-climactic. despite the continuing rain, i enjoyed a much more leisurely journey back to greg & saskia's where i savored a rather delicious sunday lamb roast and today, i am very much looking forward to partaking of my poached chicken. chicken whose delicate flavour, i think, will be made all the more sublime owing to the associated potential danger involved in its creation.

who knew danger could be such an essential pantry item?