I must confess, writing this column has made one thing blatantly obvious to me. Many of the gifts I bought Randall for Christmas have to do with food preparation…guess it’s beyond obvious now that cooking is a favorite hobby of ours.

So, I’ll come clean, once again. Randall had raved about funnel cakes when we made plans to go to the fair in October. He’d gotten his delicious funnel cake at the fair, and a last minute decision to add Bavarian cream on top proved detrimental, as, the way he described it, the cool and wet topping had undone the very basis of funnel-cake finality—the warm and crisp texture.

As luck would have it, we visited his family in Destin over Thanksgiving. Being a die-hard, Black-Friday goer, I wouldn’t let a little change of location stop me. Randall was a good sport and we got a jump on shopping after Thanksgiving lunch. By dinner time, we were bargain shopping like mad.

While in Big Lots, I found a funnel-cake kit for an extremely reasonable price. How could I pass this up?! I sent him to look on another aisle, but the box in the buggy and threw my coast over it. Sweet and sly am I, haha. I couldn’t wait to see that magic sparkle in his eyes on Christmas morning as he unwrapped the jovial-colored box of red and yellow, complete with Ferris wheel in the background.

As you might guess, he loved it. A couple months after the Christmas bustle had ceased, he opened the box and turned on the stove, big smile beaming from his lips.

A shallow pool of oil heated in the skillet as we placed the metal ring in the center of the oil. The directions explained that we should mix the packet of powder with water and pour it into the festive, yellow pitcher. The pitcher’s long spout would allow the batter to steam out in a thin line as we pour it in sporadic motions within the metal ring. The ring is about two inches tall and about eight inches in diameter. It’s meant to hold the batter in a circular shape to form the funnel cake.

So here we go. Randall’s first, slightly haphazard, batter pouring sent a tiny bit of oil leaping out from the side of the skillet and onto the electric burner. We took half-a-second to exchange a dumbfounded glance, then both bent over and began to blow out the small fire. It only took a moment, then we stood back to observe our frying funnel cake, the rising streams of smoke and floating bits of burnt aluminum foil that had once protected the drip pans under the stove’s eyes. I believe we made it cry, or it sort of seemed like grey snowflakes dancing through the air as the smoke choked us and watery eyes commenced.

I poured powdered sugar into the yellow, over-sized shaker that the kit provided.

I prepared a plate with paper towels and Randall used the spatula to remove the grease-soaked, half-burnt, half-raw…cake.

It took us a few moments to realize he need only pour a lighter stream of batter, and less of it, to make a thinner cake, thus producing a fully-cooked one.

We moved back to the stove and I raised the camera just as he raised the pitcher of batter toward the skillet.

Somehow, the burner knew what was at stake. Every time the motion of his wrist moved to pour the batter into the pan, a very small flame would flare up, send a smoke signal, and go out on its own. We looked at each other in amazement as he repeated this motion with the same result, about four times. I went into a frenzy of picture-snapping and laughing as he started to pour, started a fire, started to pour, started a fire.

I lowered the camera to hold my stomach as it quaked with laughter.

“I think it’s trying to tell you something,” I mustered from gasps of breath.

He laughed loud and looked at me with that, ‘did you really just go there’ look on his face.

Finally, the pour was allowed and the second funnel cake emerged, quite tasty, crisp, and cooked-through. He assaulted the sugar-shaker over the cake, as if my light sprinkles had done no good at all.

We stood leaning against the bar, nibbling the funnel cake and both stopped as if we were entirely over funnel cake for the evening, and would try again some other time.

Dinner, we hadn’t eaten dinner, and that amount of powdered sugar demands respect.

I don’t mind telling you, that as we flopped down to a pallet on the living-room floor to watch movies, our eyes watered, off and on, for the rest of the night. We could see a very slight cloud that hung in the air, refusing to leave by the front door with the rest of the snow-flurry.

Strangely enough, I haven’t actually smoked up the kitchen since I was about 19 or 20. The deep, dark fried turkey was safely fried outside…I do believe the title I gave this column has something to do with it. Just sayin’….