Mark Biteme

My house smells. It smells very bad. Thankfully, I am out babysitting this week and so do not have to sit in my stinky house all day, but the fact remains that I do have to spend some time here and it smells.

And it's all Mark Bittman's fault.

We finally carved pumpkins on Saturday. I know, it's tragic to leave pumpkins uncarved until so long after Halloween, but we did, and trust me, we have been amply punished.

I've never really been a fan of eating pumpkin seeds. You chew, you get blechy stuff in your mouth, and you spit it all out. Theoretically, there's some soft something in there that you consume, but the blechiness outways any mystical yummy softness. However, Guy's a big fan and the kids were excited and we did have all these pumpkin seeds, so here we go.

Now, in some sense one could say that this is partly my fault, as I complained about my pumpkin seed-eating experiences, and Guy turned to the experts to find a better way of doing things. Mark Bittman said that we should bake them at 350 for 45 minutes or until done, AND THEN MICROWAVE THEM FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES--yes, he said minutes--stirring every five minutes. Ahah! thought Guy. This must be the secret to softer pumpkin seeds--the microwave must seal in the moisture or something.

After five minutes in the microwave, we smelled a fire.

There were no actual flames, but the seeds were charred. (And the one or two that weren't were just as blechy, by the way.) We coughed and gagged and hid downstairs, but reading a story was still difficult, and I had a terribly sore throat.

So, sad waste of pumpkin seeds. But the worst part is, the smell won't leave. We've vacuumed, we've cleaned, we aired out, we've febreezed the hell out of the place. Nada. It smells like burning.