cooking outside, death in a bottle, and a potential grill

Today I learned to fry steak. I guess the proper term is to sauté, but most people who learn to sauté steak don't do it on a borrowed propane burner outside on a patio table. I'd have to say that my technique consisted of pouring olive oil in the pan, then when that was hot, putting the steak in, and then standing over it anxiously until I deemed it necessary to turn it over. That part went fine, but then I got distracted washing the moldie/carbon-monoxide EI lady's laundry. It all worked out fine anyway, but we probably won't survive the night because everybody knows fried food will kill you.

Speaking of things that'll kill you, The New York Times had another installment in its 'Really?' series of things that'll kill you. The latest is two cola drinks per day. Not all soda, just colas, they think because of the phosphoric acid. It doesn't really matter because we already knew that soda will kill you, so maybe colas will just kill you faster.

So I expect many of you are still wondering why the heck I learned to sauté steak outside. It's because I still have a gas stove, and our current houseguest, the moldie/carbon-monoxide EI, is terribly sensitive to natural gas. You can fix up gas heat so it's tolerable, but I haven't figured out how to seal off a stove. The good news here is that I pretty much have a new part-time job, so in another month or so, I'll be able to afford a nifty new electric stove, which will promptly kill me if I don't offgas it on the patio first, so I may well get to cook outside again.

It was nice cooking outside. There was a light, not-too-chilly breeze, I got to talk to the neighbors' dogs, and nobody was burning anything or spewing laundry chemicals. It's too bad the homeowners' association would get all bent out of shape if I moved my gas stove outside when I get my electric stove inside. It would make a perfectly good grill-like object, one that you could bake cookies in and attract all the local wildlife.