The Day I Almost Burned Down Our Apartment Building

We've been here almost four weeks now, and ever since the movers arrived with our stuff, our grill has been sitting outside on our balcony just asking to be used. At first I was afraid we weren't allowed to have grills, but then I spotted some other units (on the side of the building hidden away from the parking lot) that had grills out on their deck. Still not sure that it's technically allowed, but if everyone else is doing it...

Then I was afraid that our little grill would set the complex on fire because it would get too hot next to the wood of the balcony flooring. But, my craving for grilled food became too great during my weekly shopping trip this week, and I planned to grill most of our meals. I had to make a special trip to Home Depot to get the small propane tank that fits our grill, and yesterday we had our first grilled meal in our new home...BBQ chicken kabobs with fresh local veggies (tomatoes and zucchini from Andrew's coworker's garden and red peppers and onions from the Farmer's Market). DELICIOUS! The veggies were to-die-for, and for the first time in the history of making this meal, only chicken was leftover.

Fast forward to tonight, when I had a craving for some more of those veggies. We were out of the peppers and the home grown zucchini, but I did have some zucchini from the Farmer's Market, so we used that along with more tomatoes and onions. This was paired along with some steaks! Here they are, fresh off the grill!!

Excuse me, I just had to wipe some drool off my face.

Anyway, we're cleaning up dinner and Andrew brings Caleb out into the living room when he yells to me about the grill...enter smoke pouring out of the grill. Never before have I left the grill on when finished grilling. Our stupid grill has a knob that makes you turn the thing up to full strength (and beyond) in order to turn it off. So I hadn't gotten it quite to off....just all the way to full on propane pouring into the flame.

So now I shut the grill off, FIRE still RAGING! I pull out the grease tray...fire still raging, only now grease is dripping down directly onto our wood balcony! I'm afraid to use water, you know...grease fire! So I sprinkle some flour on it...fire still raging, now with blackened flour stuck to the slats. Finally, I decide to try just a sprinkle of water to see what happens. {By this point, I'm terrified that our house and all of our neighbor's houses are going to burn to the ground or we're going to have a major explosion. Coincidentally, the only neighbor who I've gotten to know pulls into her handicapped parking space right below my balcony, looks up and waves. I wave back as if nothing is wrong. HELLO...raging flames and smoke pouring out of my grill...I think she noticed something was wrong.}

Anyway, the sprinkling of water didn't seem to upset the fire, so I poured a cup of water {from a measuring cup, cuz you know, in these situations using the proper amount of water is key}. WHOOSH! Flames immediately extinguished. THANK THE LORD! After dousing the grill with several more pitchers full of water just to be sure, things were back to normal. Thank goodness the model apartment, which just so happens to be the one RIGHT BELOW US, wasn't occupied our landlord or any potential new tenants as the water poured down right onto the deck below. Gosh I really hope we have a storm soon to wash away any grill debris from down there.

As yummy as that food was, I'm pretty sure it'll be a LONG while before I venture to grill on our balcony again.