The Lasanga Disaster

Joel and I have become good friends with a local couple, Liz and David. I met Liz while teaching. She was a permanent substitute in the Health Sciences Career Building. After they found a certified teacher, she wanted to get her certification. About the same time, I decided I wanted nothing to do with teaching (and my certification). I tutored her for the exam; she fed me her should-be-famous smashed sandwiches.

I am happy to report that she PASSED her science composite exam and is well on her way to being a certified teacher. The two of us now come over for potluck dinners and catching up.

Tonight, however, we already had dinner plans. We were making mexican lasagna. It looked pretty good in the cookbook and the directions were simple: assemble, bake for 30 minutes, remove from oven. Easy, right? The only change we made was a wider pan to make more in one go. Once we put it in the oven, I realized I needed to go get something from Liz. We figured we had 30 minutes; this was a perfect window to run this errand.

Mistake. Thirty minutes turned out to be a little over an hour away from home. David is a bona fide entertainer and will revile you with stories while refilling your wine glass. When we pulled into the driveway, we could already hear the fire alarm beeping. The front door opened to rolling waves of smoke.

Here is what the cookbook showed as the final project:

Here is ours:

The odd thing is that even with the double amount of time in the oven, the dish was fine, actually delicious, once you peeled off the burnt top. It might have helped that by now it was 9pm and we were a little tipsy with empty stomachs.