Megyn Shares the Kitchen Fail That Ended with the Fire Department Showing Up: ‘Cooking Is Not for Me’

I shared this on Instagram the other day, but I had to share the full story of what brought the fire department to my house over the weekend. In all, there were five firefighters, plus the big truck and then some little trucks too.

It all started because I tried to cook chicken cutlets. I breaded them in panko and put them in a cast iron frying pan with oil. It was not a ton of oil, mind you, but it did start to smoke. The problem was that I have a relatively new stove and the fan is supposed to go on automatically. It didn’t go on, but I think that is because I turned it off. I think the noise was annoying me earlier this summer, so I turned it down or off. I don’t know.

In any event, the smoke got out of control and it set off the smoke alarms. They went off everywhere, which makes sense because, if you actually have a fire, you want to let everybody in the house know that there is a fire. But they were going off very loud, and some of them even speak and say, “fire, fire, fire” (which there wasn’t). 

I was running around trying to get the smoke out, opening up the windows and the door. Strudwick and Thunder were going crazy because it was so piercingly loud just to the human ear, never mind to a dog ear. I decided to let them out on the side lawn, which Strud is not allowed to be on because he is such a menace.

The pool is there, and that dog cannot be near that pool. I have no issue with him taking a swim; that I can handle. But it is what happens after that is problematic. He loves to rub himself in the dirt and then run all around the hardscape and the furniture that we have out there, which is a pain in the ass to clean. 

I obviously had to do it in this case, and, while the dogs are out, the fire department came. I mean, if there had been like a five-alarm fire, these firemen would not have been dressed any differently. They had every piece of gear on. When I opened up the door and they clearly saw there was no fire, they immediately said, “Did you try to cook?” They had a feeling. 

Mind you, the smoke alarms were still going off. The firemen tried to help me override the system. We tried turning off the electricity, but the alarm started up again when we turned it back on. Finally, I got in touch with the alarm guy, who showed me how to turn it off properly. It finally stopped, and they left – but not before we took some selfies and they let me sit in the fire truck. That was funny. 

I then turned my attention back to the dogs. Strudwick was the disaster I knew he would be. The whole lawn was torn up. There was dirt everywhere. He had gotten into some old food that my kids had left out there. He was rolling in the dirt in the flower bed – right out of the pool – and then running all over the furniture. I finally got them back inside.

At that point, I returned to the stove. I had nine chicken breasts that I was preparing to get the whole family through the weekend. I figured the kids and our guests could grab it and go for lunch or dinner. We eat so badly when we are at the beach, and I was trying to fix that. 

I cut the nine chicken breasts in half, so there were 18 pieces. Two actually cooked okay, but I come back in to find them all covered in flies from my open windows and my open doors. I don’t have any screens. Why don’t I have any screens? That’s a question for another day.

Needless to say, all the chicken had to go in the garbage. I threw them all out, and then I went out to dinner. My husband was out doing this weird sports Olympics thing with his friends, so I went out with some of my sympathetic friends. They gave me a nice cocktail, and we had a delicious dinner.

Cooking is not for me. There are limits to the short list of gifts that God gave me and not one is present inside the culinary arts. It is very sad. I have tried so many times, as you all know. My only regret in my whole kitchen snafu was that my dear mother-in-law was not alive to enjoy this because my kitchen follies were among her favorite things in life, and I would have loved to have had a laugh with her over this.