singed eyebrows and the rest

The time - 9.30pm The place - our patio The dish - Delia's pork chops with apples and calvados

The chops were cooked. The calvados was warming on the stove. I decided, after a glbutt of Tio Pepe, that I would not risk a house-fire by setting light to the calvados indoors, so took the pan outside and placed it on the crazy-paving. I took my dear little copper pan containing the warmed calvados outside, gas-lighter in hand, and poured it over the pan. I set light to it and 'Whoosh!!' - up it went. Flames five feet high (nearly two metres for younger readers). I didn't know I could move so fast and leapt backwards about three feet (that is almost a metre - please keep up!). The flames were as tall as me! Perhaps if I had set light to it before pouring it from the copper pan on to the big pan, things would have been better. (That is what Delia's recipe says you should do but I stubbornly decided to do my own thing. - I suppose the flames are contained somewhat from lack of air.)

I am surprised my new specs didn't melt and my eyebrows weren't burned off but am now shocked to see that the hair right at the front of my forehead has been reduced to a couple of millimetres of nasty stubble. I can't understand why there was no smell of singed hair. Thereby hangs a warning:)

PS The chops tasted lovely:) -- June Hughes