In Peru, most people with gas stoves buy propane in small tanks that they connect to them. One has to buy a full tank every so often (every 3 weeks, since we bake a lot) necessitating unhooking the old tank and connecting the new. When I've mentioned to people that most homes in the USA have gas lines and people don't have to haul around propane tanks, they are a bit horrified to think of gas lines running through one's house. 'What if the gas line bursts? Your house will blow up!' I've felt like responding, 'What if your hose clamp comes off? Your kitchen would burn up!' And that is what happened last week to Mary Beth's friend Miriam. As she was cooking, the hose clamp came off and the escaping gas caught on fire. It started waving around like a flamethrower. Thankfully, she was able to escape, but everything combustible in her kitchen was reduced to ashes. Since we recently combined two households when we got married, we had a lot of duplicate items, so we took a box of kitchen things to give her yesterday.
A metal cupboard sort of survived.
Miriam and Mary Beth
