Tonkatsu fail

I got a hand written recipe to make Japanese pork cutlets (tonkatsu) and in my first attempt to make it, I smoked the apartment out so badly that I could barely see through the smoke layer, opened both my front door and patio door, and had to put bags over the smoke detectors to prevent them from going off. Sometimes during that year living in Japan I would cook for 1-2 hours, throw the inedible attempt into the garbage, then hop on my bike to get dinner at a family restaurant. It took a lot of fails to finally become a confident cook!