Just now wrapping up the laundry and sending my friend home. She made wonderful mashed potatoes and grilled carrots, while I...burned the meat. Both the chicken and the steak. What a comedy of cooking errors!

The smoke from the charcoal briquettes in the chimney sent my neighbors into a tizzy! First the downstairs neighbor screaming, wondering if we had a fire. I spoke to her, and explained it was normal, and...a little smokey.

Then the upstairs neighbor came down, wondering if we were going to set the giant bush in the backyard on fire. I walked her through the house to the balcony, and showed her what we were doing.

She suggested using an air fryer.

I cooked the chicken first, thinking we were only going to have chicken, and then my friend really wanted the steak, so I threw the chicken in the oven to stay warm and put the steak on the grill. Sadly, I thought the low coals wouldn't be very hot, and so left it on for a while...the coals were very hot, and the steak was some of carbon, and a lot of very, very well done.

Then while cooking the steak, potatoes and carrots, the chicken overcooked as well.

Not my finest hour on the grill.

Then we ate, and intermittently through all the laundry, we chatted on the balcony and watched Arietty on my DVD drive. Apparently, the optical lens was quite dusty as it took many attempts before the DVD Player actually launched on Mac OS X.

All in all, the friend made the evening a wonderful success, in spite of the chaos.