Saturday, January 12, 2013

21st Century Pioneer Woman

With a dramatic bang and a tiny wisp of smoke, my electric range quit working last night. Fortunately, dinner was ready.

This is actually the third stove we've owned in the 14 years we've lived here. When the elements kept burning out on the original 1985 model, we replaced it with a cool black ceramic top number. It was awesome until that day when the oven shorted out, blowing the entire circuitry on it. The repairman assured me that although the part was on back order, it would be there in a couple of weeks.

Two weeks without a stove seemed crazy. The first thing we bought was an electric kettle to boil water for coffee. We already had a crock pot and a combination deep-fryer and general electric pot. Our microwave is also a convection oven, and so we did nicely. When they called to tell us that it might be another week or so, I got an induction burner.

By now it was early November, and Thanksgiving was on the way. During one of my pointed calls, someone finally broke the news to me that my range was going to be out of commission for the entire holiday season. I reeled for a moment and then went into catering on site mode, channeling the mindset I had given up a decade ago.

For Thanksgiving, I farmed out the turkey and made all my other sides with the versatile little appliances I had. (I don't think I've roasted a turkey since.) At Christmas I did all my baking in the convection. It took a little longer, but it was fine. We ate normal meals and had guests over. Stove? Pffffft.

Thinking back on that time now, five years later, I have to say that being stoveless really wasn't too much more than an inconvenience, in fact I kind of enjoyed the challenge of it all. At last, though, in March, I broke down and bought a newer, better range. A few months later, they delivered the errant part. That kind of made me mad, but I was enjoying the new stove too much to let it bother me for long.

Until last night. Oh, I've put a call in to my new, reliable repair guy, and I have high hopes that he will be able to make a quick and simple fix, but he's so old-fashioned that he doesn't work on weekends, which is okay with me.

We'll make do.


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