A funny thing happened while making my daughter’s birthday dinner. It caught fire!

Both kids were in from college to celebrate Ashley’s big 22, okay it wasn’t that big. She asked for ribs and corn on the cob. Simple, made it dozens of times.

So we are in the backyard, the grill is hot (obviously too hot), dogs are playing with the kids, when I sense that there is too much smoke in the yard. How could the grill be that hot? What was causing all the smoke?  I had just put the ribs on for saucing and the corn had been on for fifteen minutes.

I opened the lid to the grill and the mighty inferno exploded. It seem the ribs were jealous of the corn quietly roasting so they unleashed a flurry of juices onto what was nice warm coals. The juice erupted like a volcano as it hit the hot charcoal.

I quickly moved the ribs to safer areas of the grill and looked at the corn. My nice, plump ears were on FIRE!  I couldn’t help but laugh. Using tongs, I picked up an ear and just looked at it on fire. It was hilarious. Sure I am used to singed husk but this wasn’t singed, this was on FIRE. Okay Mr. Chef, what do you do now?

There I am with a tong full of flaming corn husk with six others still on the grill. My first thought was to blow out the fire. But then a vision of singed face entered my mind. I did the next best thing, short of the fire extinguisher, which I haven’t seen for years (yes I know I was ill-prepared for Armageddon), I placed the flaming corn onto a tray and whacked the flames down with my tongs.

But to everyone’s surprise, but me of course, the corn was safe, a little charred at the tip, but very flavorful and juicy.

Let this be a lesson for everyone grilling, always be prepared for flame out. You should never grill without a spray bottle of water by your grill and, better yet, an extinguisher nearby. You never know when the food inside your grill is going to have a very violent argument with the coals beneath them.