It blew up into a giant fireball.

Two days before New Year’s. I was at home, making lunch and jotting down a list of resolution ideas for 2026. The winter sun beamed through the kitchen window and an old film was playing as background noise.

Lunch consisted of rice and a Cantonese-style steamed sea bass dish, prepared with julienned spring onions and ginger, Thai chili peppers (optional), sugar, and a splash of soy sauce. In this version, I also pour sizzling hot oil over the steamed fish at the end, to bring out the fragrance of the spring onions and ginger.

One of my potential resolutions was to cook at home more often, so I figured I would start early.

I added two tablespoons of canola oil to a saucepan and turned up the heat on the stovetop. Then I turned around to my dining table, to plate the cooked fish and garnish it with the aforementioned spring onions, ginger slices, and chili peppers, all of which took less than a minute. I turned back around to the stovetop and noticed a small flame coming out of the saucepan.

Shit! Okay, don’t panic.

But also, don’t throw water onto an oil fire!

I quickly shut off the burner as thoughts flashed through my mind. I tried to remember if I had a fire extinguisher or fire blanket at home – I didn’t. I looked around for something to put out the fire, and only a nearby wet tea towel seemed viable. But will that be effective in smothering out oxygen, or will it cause the same problems as throwing water on a grease fire?

That’s when it happened. In that brief moment of inaction, the small flame ignited into a giant fireball. And from the larger fire came a rapidly rising cloud of black smoke that soon became dense enough to cover the kitchen window and darken the entire room.

And then, the fire alarm went off.

Okay, now…panic.

I grabbed the wet tea towel, wrapped it around the saucepan’s wooden handle, hoping that the flame wouldn’t scorch my hand, and carried it outside. I hurried back into the kitchen, found the lid, and took it out to cover the saucepan and smother the fire. Then I opened the doors and windows to let the billowing smoke out of the house. Phew. Crisis averted.

The fire alarm stopped blaring after a few minutes. As the dark clouds slowly cleared away, a scene unfolded of black soot covering the white kitchen cabinets and marble countertop. Even though the flame only lived for a short while, the smoke had managed to engulf and cling onto every surface within its reach. There were even specks of black particles drifting through the air (perhaps the remnants of a hidden spiderweb that was caught in the mishap) and landing on tableware and other household objects.

A side note: any of my friends who have visited my home – which I aim to keep super tidy and super clean – would know how much this sight would have freaked me out. I nearly lost it.

I immediately got to work cleaning. I searched online for the best way to rid each surface of the soot: warm water, mild soap, and a microfiber cloth for the PVC cabinet doors; a rubber eraser for the marble countertop and splashback; dish washer for all the unused plates and utensils now speckled with black dots.

I tried to do this methodically, first by wiping the cabinet doors one by one and then rubbing the countertop one inch at a time. But the soot was layered and stubborn. Whenever I thought I had purged one area of the smokey residue, I would notice new details of black streaks or tiny specks, and I would go back to scrubbing that same spot again. Maybe I was imagining things, because even the areas where I was sure I had thoroughly cleaned – really, I mean thoroughly – I would return to find more blotches a moment later.

This was like a modern-day, kitchen-accident version of the Lernaean Hydra.

Soon, one hour of cleaning turned into two, and lunchtime became late evening. As time passed, I tried to move faster to rid the grey blemishes that were starting to settle into faint stains on the countertop. I was also feeling cross-eyed from poring over every nanometer of the doors and panels while wiping and rubbing.

When I took a break and sat down to observe this monstrous crime scene, I felt a bit frustrated for having set off the grease fire in the first place. If only I had paid more attention! Now I have to spend hours cleaning and my kitchen is forever tarnished! And right before New Year’s as well!

But dramatization aside, when I told my friends about the mini ordeal, they all responded in the same way: Glad you didn’t get hurt!

They were right, of course. I didn’t burn myself. The sprinklers hadn’t gone off and potentially soak through electric appliances. And for all the inky fumes that had covered and stained the kitchen walls, the fire hadn’t spread to destroy anything else (apart from the poor saucepan) or cause structural damage to the house. For that, I am very grateful.

With this in mind, I finally stopped cleaning and let myself be okay with the barely noticeable (at least, according to my friends) marks left on the kitchen surfaces. I figured they can serve as a reminder that, at the very least, I didn’t get hurt and nothing actually burned down.

Things can get messy sometimes, and that’s okay. As long as it doesn’t cause structural damage.

So, that’s my New Year resolution, to worry less about small flaws and, perhaps, even to embrace them.

Also, I will cook at home more often.