Kerplooey !!!!

There's a reason they warn you NOT to place most glass bakeware on a stove top burner!! I blew up my beautiful heavy blue glass 15" x 8*' baking dish last night. I loved that dish!!

This is the sister dish to that beautiful
rectangular one. they came in a matched set of 3!

We were fixing a smoked turkey dinner with all the fixings (Thanksgiving in Sept.). We have houseguests this week. The guys did the turkey breasts on the smoker outside. I took the easy way out and made stove top dressing in the microwave (2 boxes full). I spread the finished dressing in the baking dish with the idea of sticking it in the oven to warm up and get a little crispy when the turkey was done and resting. (I got that together a little ahead of time and sat it on the top of the stove.)

Those birds DID look good!

They carried the tray with those beautiful golden brown turkey breasts on them in and set them on the kitchen counter. I then stuck the potatoes in the microwave and turned the burners on for beans and sauerkraut (It's Mid-Atlantic thing with turkey!) on the stove. Now, you would think after several years with this stove, I'd know which knob controlled which burner.

Within a minute or so, I smelled something burning and realized I'd accidentally turned the burner on under that glass casserole! I turned it off, touched and found the dish already warm and grabbed it off with potholders. I carried it in the dining room where the table was empty except for a wooden cutting board. I lifted the casserole and checked for damage before sitting it down on that board. (Thank goodness, I'd dragged my feet on setting the table!) I turned and walked back into the kitchen when it sounded like the entire dining room blew up! (Scarey, considering we have a smoked glass table there!)

...and glass rained down upon EVERYTHING!!!

Little square chunks of glass blew everywhere!! You heard them ping off everything in the room. (I have shelves along one whole wall full of collectibles!) Believe me, we got everyone's attention. It did break into what seems like millions of little 1/4" square pieces - like windshield glass breaks.

Everyone scrambled to get shoes on and jumped in to clean it up. (Dinner was already running fairly late as the turkeys had taken their own good time getting done. Apparently, they were very happy snuggled out there on the smoker.) They laughed at me as I calmly stood there and said "Dinner will be delayed a bit more and the dressing is now scratched from tonight's menu." (I was not calm. I wanted to throw myself across the bed and cry!)

Luckily, there were only a few chunks of glass that had bounced lowly onto the kitchen floor. Had they been high-flying, we'd have had to toss everything for fear of glass contamination. I've always wanted to take the wall out between my kitchen and dining room. Last night might be the first time I was glad we didn't. A fair amount of glass did fly through the archway into the living room, though. What a mess!!

It took SEVERAL bottles of wine to calm us down!

We all swept, vacuumed and wiped with a damp cloth and within an hour we did sit down to eat what turned out to be a great (though late) meal. Several bottles of wine were consumed in an effort to "calm our nerves." I did have one more box of Stove Top so I threw that together and dressing was back on the menu. (Of course, everyone only had a very small serving of it.)

We did sit back and laugh about it later. My friend also laughed about me wandering around still clutching both potholders in my hand while I used the broom. I had never put them down from moving the dish to the dining room! She thinks I was in shock.

Those danged shelves still have a lot of glass on them!

I guess today I need to start the very time consuming job of cleaning those shelves again. They are full of glass pieces. It seemed best to just ignore those nooks and crannies last night. We were all hungry!

Anybody interested in being invited to my next dinner party?