Earth, wind, and...wait for it...

Last night I made bread. That, plus the week's worth of "not-dishwasher-able" dishes made for a pretty hefty pile. So once the dish-drain was full, I folded a towel and placed it on our flat-surface cooktop, and started putting the heavy dishes there to dry. A bit later, P-chan decided to cook some chicken helper for his lunch. After several minutes, he yelled out to me, something about smoke. The towel was smoking! He grabbed the stoneware pieces and told me to take them, that they weren't hot. My brain was slow, and didn't believe him, so he got a little frantic. I finally moved and placed them in the sink, while he turned off the burner. I grabbed the towel, which was smoldering, and took it to the back porch, where it promptly burst into flames. I was still holding it, so of course I did the logical thing and started waving it around. *yeah, not smart, I know* Then I remembered what I was actually supposed to do, and dropped it, and smothered it with itself. After the flames were out, it still sat smoldering, so I had to get a cup of water to douse it.
So how did the burner get turned on? I had assumed that P-chan had somehow turned on the wrong burner, but it turns out that as the stoneware was drying, one of them turned on the burner. Moral of the story? Don't use your stove for a drying area!
And also, I need more counter space....

At least the bread turned out pretty well. I forgot that I was supposed to add several minutes to the baking time, since I was using my stoneware pans. It was a bit doughy when it first came out, but I think it's fine now. And since I'm a pack-rat, I had bread bags on hand, so it looks like I bought unsliced bread. I posted the recipe over at Kitchen Crazy.

Any ideas where the camera's cord is? Yeah, me neither.