Gourmet Cooking and Kitchen Fires

When were were 17, a good friend on the street and I decided that we should really learn to cook dinners, considering we would be moving away from home soon. We decided that she would cook for her family one night a week, and I would eat with them, and I would cook for my family one night a week, and she would eat with us. Soon we ended up dueling to see who could make the best, gourmet, three course meal. We were both scouring Julia Childs and the New York Times cookbooks and making complicated recipes with exotic ingredients, that I am sure neither of us used again when we moved away from home. I will never forget the night when one part of my meal was deep fried meatballs. Suddenly the pot of oil for deep frying started shooting flames. I don't know why I didn't think to just put the lid on (maybe the pot didn't have a lid), but while my mother tried to get an ancient fire extinguisher to work, I ran over to the neighbour who said, use flour, not water. Home again and dump a bag of flour on the oil which worked. Finally the meatballs got fried, and the meal was served. We were all (my girlfriend included of course) sitting at the dining room table instead of the usual kitchen table, in honor of the fancy meal, when my father came home and heard the story of the fire. He took the old fire extinguisher and said, "This is easy to use", and he promptly sprayed it over the table.