This could very well be Kitchen Rule #1:

If you smell something burning, go down to the kitchen. Don’t sit there at your desk, doing a mental inventory, trying to convince yourself nothing could possibly be burning.

And if you do sit there for a good ten more minutes, don’t be surprised when you discover something like this:

Not shown: the cassoulet that was in the oven on the rack below. The overflowed gingerbread batter formed a neat rectangular outline on top of the beans.

Fortunately, it was easy to pick the gingerbread bits off. But it did get me thinking: Can you bake with duck fat?