Well that's me told then. I promise I won't do it again, sir :P For the record, when I say I "went off to do something else" I don't mean I left the pot on and

Well that's me told then. I promise I won't do it again, sir :P For the record, when I say I "went off to do something else" I don't mean I left the pot on and went away, I mean I stayed in the kitchen and turned my back to it, while I was preparing to cook. This happened last summer. I started heating some oil in my French oven to brown some meat. It takes some time to heat the oil because I start from a low heat and increase it gradually to avoid damaging the pot (enamel is very sensitive to sudden temperature changes). Because I'm an idiot, I eventually turned the heat all the way to the max, even though it's a French oven and it will get hot enough to brown meat even at medium heat. In the meantime I prepared my other ingredients, then I turned back to the pot and it was smoking, so I took it out and left it to cool down, then changed the oil and started all over again. I think this has happened a couple more times over the years, when I changed homes or got a new stove. I have certainly managed to burn food in hot oil, of course. That makes a lot more smoke and smells a lot worse. I have never seen any flames though. And I'm completely paranoid about frying, not even deep frying. A friend of mine had an accident when we were kids, when frying some eggs, and it's left him a scar for life, so I still treat frying oil a like an extremely dangerous substance. Which it is.