You know, sometimes I outdo even myself. Based on today’s experience, I present: How to Detonate Your Pressure Cooker.

See, you wouldn’t normally consider a pressure cooker to be an explosive device, but with a little skill, some hungry impatience and instruction from yours truly, you too can endanger your very life. Simply ignore everything you know about safety and common sense, and twist the lid off the cooker after it’s been hissing for over twenty minutes. As soon as you have twisted the seal open, the lid will fly vertically off the pot and beef stew will explode all over the freshly scrubbed stove, go flying into the pot of milk you‘ve just boiled, and arrange itself artfully in your hair. Fortunately, the droplets of scalding broth that land on your feet will be adequately cooled by their descent to not prove lethal. What will kill you, however, are the hungry people who preferred their stew for dinner, not decoration. (I know not how much longer I shall tarry in this mortal sphere...)

But since I’m still alive and there’s still exactly 23 minutes and 40 seconds until the bread is out of the oven, I’m free-bloggin, just typing whatever comes to mind. I would like people to think that I put alot of time and mental effort into my blog, but the truth is I go for quantity instead of quality, and I try to blog every day even if it’s just rubbish. tee hee

Sixteen minutes till the bread’s out. Now what? I’ve already typed a paragraph of nonsense and then deleted it. It’s not that I can’t think on an empty stomach, it’s just that the bread smells so good that it’s very distracting. What's left of my stew isn’t half-way bad either.

Ten minutes left on the bread. The weather here is turning warm again, which means it’s time to put away my winter-weight jilbs. The summer temps in Islamabad are around 40 C, 110F, (sometimes higher, the highest last year was 46 C, that’s too much in Fahrenheit to count anymore without feeling woozy). After a few weeks of it you feel like you’ve been stewing in your own juices. We cope by drinking gallons of ice water, wearing frozen bandanas and wet scarves. Rats, now I’ve given away my summer secret. Yes, I dunk my scarf in cold water, give it a good squeeze and then pin it on. Keeps you mercifully cool for about half an hour before it dries out completely. Plus then I don’t have to iron it if it looks wrinkly. I must confess, I religiously avoid ironing anything from about May to October till the fall rains come.

Four minutes on the bread! Monsoon season comes towards the end of summer. Boy I thought it rained hard in Chicago, but it was nothing compared to the tropical storms we get here, and they blow up out of nowhere sometimes, too. Last year my sister and I were standing on the balcony watching the lightening in the sky, and I asked her, “You think it’s gonna rain?” As soon as I had said that, suddenly a vertical sheet of water and wind hit us both in the face and pushed us backwards. Yes it rained, tons and tons of water like someone opened floodgates in the sky, and then closed them just as abruptly half an hour later.

Bread’s done! Soup’s on!

Aaaah...now dinner’s over and the world seems like a happier place :) Alhamdulillahillazi ata’amana, wa saqana, wa ja’alana minal Muslimeen! (All Praise is due to Allah who fed us and gave us drink and made us of among the Muslims).

Labels: Mortal Wounds

posted by Abez @ 3/31/2003 08:12:00 PM