What was I thinking?

The Anthropologist went to visit a friend in Sac Town and wanted to bring his camera along — but it seemed to have disappeared. After searching high and low with no luck, I offered to lend him mine, on penalty of death if he hurt it in any way. After all, he was only going to be gone a couple days, and I wasn't planning on cooking anything special that would need to be photographed.

Famous last words! First of all, I made an awesome leftover-turkey sandwich that came about completely by accident when I thought I was making one particular recipe and was really following an entirely different one. To clarify, I wanted to make a grilled turkey with brie and cranberry sauce but ended up starting with a recipe for a turkey-cranberry relish sandwich with herbed mayo. So I put the two together — and behold the magic of cooking. With no camera to record the results, I figured I'd just wait till another day, make another sandwhich (especially since there was leftover cranberry-fig relish), and bust the camera out then.

But then came the exciting part. After weighting down my sandwich with a jar of tomato sauce balanced on a green plastic plate from IKEA, I walked away. For too long. By the time I figured the second side of my sandwich had reached a nice, toasty brown, the sides of the plate, which had apparently been resting on the sides of the small frying pan, had begun to melt, fusing itself to the hot metal beneath. After removing the jar, I picked up the plate, which left stringy, stretchy green goo in its wake that quickly began to cool and harden. The plate was obviously ruined, and so was the pan, more or less. (I'm letting it cool before I see if it's salvageable. On the bright side, I got it at Target for, like, six bucks, so it's not the end of the world.)

The sandwich, meanwhile, was no worse for wear and pretty tasty, though the relish could have used more sugar (which tends to happen when I throw things in a pot higgelty-piggelty and don't taste it).

But I missed several excellent photo opportunities, including the effects of heat on plate and pan. Honestly, I'm more upset about that than about ruining some of my stuff.

The moral of the story: Plastic does not like heat. And tell your boyfriend he's out of luck if he can't find his own camera!