No fire extinguishers necessary

With apologies to Meg, whose Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme is the ultimate in food blogging, I hereby announce that Rich and I have achieved quite the culinary feat ourselves; we actually used our kitchen for something other than storing Diet Coke.

I'm not sure what prompted it but for four evenings in the last ten days, we've actually prepared our own dinner -- a teriyaki chicken stir fry.

For most people, this whole cooking thing is just a daily activity. For Rich and me, who only have a kitchen because it came with the house, it's practically a miracle.

We had it down to a science after the first go-round. Rich handles the actual stovetop action while I'm in charge of cutting up the vegetables, preparing the rice, and setting the table. And, by setting the table, of course I mean putting paper towels on the coffee table and making sure the Tivo has an episode of King of the Hill ready to go.

This culinary adventure has gone so well so far that I even ventured into the cookware section at Bed, Bath and Beyond and emerged with a new wok-like pot. It's like I'm practically a gourmet chef.

In the future we may even alter the meal and try something completely different like chicken stir fry with a tomato-based sauce.