Out Of Range

[NB: Maybe it was International Women’s Day, but yes, I was thinking about this song when I came up with the title for today’s post.]

There I was, standing in the kitchen, minding my own business. I had gathered all the random ends of foodstuffs from the refrigerator, and I was preparing to make some kind of smorgasbord of leftovers.

Mrs. Fussy was going to have the split pea soup.
The kids were going to eat the black beans.
I was going for the rotini with tomato sauce.

It was going to be a multi-pot meal that would push the limits of the four burners on the stovetop. Mostly because I was running late and was using two burners to bring fresh, cold water to a boil at an accelerated rate.

Then I caught a flash out of the corner of my eye, and heard a loud pop. Apparently, the range had some kind of short circuit. It had been on its last legs for a while. It was the original stove from this house that was built sometime in the early 80’s. Appliances don’t last forever.

Anyhow, do you know that scene in every movie where the father gets something totally wrong?

Yeah. Well that happened. Because I was absolutely convinced that the problem was localized to one burner. But it turned out, none of the burners were working. Cleverly, I realized the problem must be the circuit breaker. So I took Young Master Fussy out into the garage to explain all about electricity.

Of course, I made sure everything on the range was turned off before heading into the garage to flip the circuit breaker. Except, once the circuit was connected, the light on the range indicated the stovetop was on, even though everything was very clearly off.

So, it was back out to the garage to turn off the range for good, and into the car for dinner at Five Guys.

It was there when we decided to just buy a new range. Interestingly, I had just talked to our plumber last week about the possibility of running a gas line from the garage into the kitchen so I could have the gas stove of my dreams.

Dreams are meant to be shattered for the sake of family. They are. How do you know family is important if you don’t make sacrifices for them. I’ll spare you the details, but trust me when I say that getting another crappy electric range is truly the best thing for the peace and harmony of our home. Sigh. Kids.

The new oven is coming. It will be here on Monday. It’s pretty much exactly like the old oven, which was fine. You know, except for the electric arcs and all.

But today is Thursday.

We use the oven all the time. I cook. That’s how I eat. The microwave is the thing I use to bring my heating pad up to a therapeutic temperature. I cook my lunches. I cook my dinners. Fortunately, I’m not in the middle of any serious cooking projects at the moment.

That said, I could really use a few suggestions. Mostly because I don’t want to eat out at family friendly neighborhood restaurants for the next five days. But it may be just as soul killing to eat microwavable meals. Honestly, I don’t know which one is worse. Plus the replacement blade for the Cuisinart still hasn’t come, so I can’t do things like hummus either.

Maybe the weather will be nice enough to do some grilling. I know that people do that all year long, even in these parts. I’m made of less sturdy stuff. But it might be worth a try.

It feels strange being out of my comfort zone. But I know that there are lots of people who get by every day without a stove and without cooking. I just don’t know how they do it.

Even when the new range arrives on Monday, cooking on it will be a learning process. It always takes time to understand the dynamics of a new cooking device. The upside of this new appliance is that it has twice as many high powered coils as the dinosaur it’s replacing. Plus it has a self cleaning oven, which will be nice I guess.

But I’ve never cleaned an oven, and honestly, I’m not entirely sure why one would ever do such a thing. Maybe someone can explain that to me too.