My kitchen is experiencing an influx of “Ghost Ants” (http://creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/urban/ants/ghost_ant.htm). In south Florida there are a myriad of creatures and things that go bump in the night that are not within the experience of the average New Yorker. Ghost Ants are the latest indignity. These very small creatures are somewhat invisible while foraging on a granite counter top. They can only be seen when the light hits them right or they are making off with some booty like a single grain of superfine sugar.
My New Year’s Eve food preparation began with the realization that the ants were back. I needed to thaw the bread leavings that had been frozen so that I could use them for the bread pudding I was making,but where to put them??? Where else but the oven? So I shoved them in the oven still encased in their plastic wrappers. After all it would only be a matter of a couple of hours till I began making it.
I busied my self with other preparations.
My son, a great lover of pizza, decides to preheat the oven. Not till I hear the "ding" does it dawn on me that the ding is the oven ding signaling the ovens readiness for something. I stare at the stove 400 degrees. What do you suppose that would do to plastic and cellophane? Yup, a mess, peeling dead plastic off of an oven rack can present a challenge even for the most OCD of us.
My son’s outrage at my “stupidity” of putting something encased in plastic in the oven for storage can only be surpassed my sister’s and my dumbfounded-ness at our mother having put caramel corn into the dryer for safekeeping. I’m sure in retrospect my mother never thought that “the girls” would have ever considered doing laundry. So history repeats itself in twisted ways. The end of a difficult year
Avocado in Saran Wrap
2 years ago
2 comments:
We have those same ants here in TX, and they ARE incredibly minuscule, only visible in large congregations or in a line. Its also very difficult to get rid of them.
Re items being placed in unlikely places, you have reminded me of my Mom's having baked socks on more than one occasion. After removing them from the wash line and finding them still damp, she would place the socks into the oven to finish drying by the heat of the pilot light (remember pilot lights?). The smoking socks would only be discovered, to her dismay, after she had preheated the oven in preparation for baking or roasting something. Ah, good times...
yummmmmmmmmmmm, baked socks, sort of like baked Alaska, but with a kick
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