If you do not cook, and have no interest in kitchen equipment, you might want to stop here, for this is a long and tortured tale about…a stove.
Several months ago, I was making a pizza. I removed the pizza from its plastic wrapping, put it on a baking sheet, slid it into the oven, and set the timer for 15 minutes. When I returned 15 minutes later, I discovered a cool pizza with three melted cheese shreds and a still-raw crust.
After some highly technical troubleshooting (me: “Stick your head in the oven and see what’s going on in there!” John: “Dude, my name is not Sylvia,”) we concluded that the “heaty up part” was “broken,” and made an appointment with an appliance repair man.
“Wow, this is the most stupidly designed oven I’ve ever seen,” he said, upon inspection. “It has TWO computers. And at least one of them is broken. Probably both. Nothing wrong with the actual oven parts, but the computer THINKS there is, so it won’t let the gas turn on. I’d estimate $800 to fix it.”
Now, background:
I hated our stove. HATED. It was designed by someone who wanted to look like they cooked regularly, but did not, actually, cook. The burner layout was weird, the grate sat way too high off the burners, and the burners themselves were totally underpowered- except for one burner, called the “POWER BOIL,” which would very effectively and efficiently char anything you put on it.
The idea of putting $800 into a stove I hated was…not appealing.
Around this time, my work decided to pay me some extra money. That was nice. And so we decided to go ahead and purchase a new stove- something we’d planned to do in a few years anyway.
We went stove shopping.
There is, as it turns out, a dearth of pretty stoves out there. Or I’m really picky. Either/or. Anyway, there was one stove that I really liked, that seemed enough better than our current p.o.s. stove to make it worth buying a new one, instead of just fixing the old one. It was a kinda fancy stove. But we debated and rationalized and examined the budget and talked about how much I love cooking and how nice it would be to do so on a stove that worked properly and decided to take the plunge.
Thus began a saga of woe and regret.
The nice men came to deliver the stove. They removed the old stove, tried to put in the new stove and – oops! New stove SAYS its 30 inches, but is actually 30 1/4 inches. Cute eccentric improperly-labelled stove! And no, we don’t have any tools to cut your countertops, sorry. Thanks for your old stove! Enjoy the hole in your kitchen!
So we scheduled an appointment with the “custom kitchens department” of the appliance store to come out and cut our countertops.
They came, they saw, they said “oh, no way, we don’t cut this kind of countertop.”
“You are, in fact, employees of the same company that assured us, repeatedly, that you did cut this kind of countertop, are you not?” we asked.
“Yes,” they said. “But we don’t cut this kind of countertop.”
“You understand how this is incredibly frustrating,” we said, “seeing as how we have a HOLE IN OUR KITCHEN WHERE OUR STOVE USED TO BE. The old stove at least had a working range- now we’ve been without a stove for two weeks because your colleagues took away the old one.”
“Well,” he said, “that’s your fault. You could have told him not to take it.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said, under my breath.
“There is no need for profanity, ma’am. If you don’t stop that and start acting like a lady I’ll leave here right now.”
AND THEN I GOT A LITTLE ORNERY. Because scolding me and exhorting me to “act like a lady?” COME ON, oven delivery dude.
We hired a countertop cutting crew. They came, they saw, they trimmed. We sent the appliance store a bill.
The nice men came back to deliver the stove.
The stove fit!
Angels sang!
And then I turned the stove on and the heat from the stove caused our above-range microwave to weep in pain and fear. Apparently, powerful stoves are kind of hard on over-range microwaves.
We called the appliance store.
“Oh yeah, with that stove? You need a range hood,” they said, cheerfully.
This is where I began to feel really grim. Perhaps we could just cook on a hot plate? I like hot plates! I could make it a challenge! I could probably write a blog about it and get a cookbook deal! “My Year of Hot Plate Cooking: One Woman’s Quest to Feed Her Family and Soothe Her Soul Using Only Electric-Powered Cooking Surfaces.” I smell a hit!
John, however, was delighted at the opportunity to get a new range hood. Range hoods are so industrial chic! Who wouldn’t want a range hood! Spending hundreds of dollars is so much fun! So we went back to the appliance store. We examined the selection of 30 inch range hoods (hint: there aren’t many!) chose the most basic one, set it up for delivery, went about our day.
The nice men came to deliver the range hood. You know where this is going, don’t you?
“Um, ma’am?” the y said.
“Yes?”
“It, um…it doesn’t fit.”
*head explodey steam of rage shooting out of ears*
“Really?”
“Yeah, it appears that the trim on your cabinets makes the space only 29 and 7/8 inches wide, and this is a 30 inch hood.”
Because, of course.
“STAY HERE,” I instructed, because if there was one thing I could not handle it was waiting another two weeks for another appliance delivery with another 8 hour window of having to stay home waiting for the nice men with the truck. I swear to you I am not making this up: I went to the basement, got out the sandpaper, and SANDED DOWN OUR CABINETS BY HAND. While they waited. (They did not offer to help, which: whatever, dudes, you’re the ones on a schedule, not me.)
And it fit.
Angels sang.
They put a new, small microwave on a parcel of underutilized counter space. I hate the new microwave, but whatever. We have a range. We have a hood. We are no longer risking burning our house down every time I use the range.
Yes, we still have some raw-sanded looking cabinet trim. Yes, we also have a patch of wall where the microwave used to be that is kind of scraggly looking. And yes, we spent several hours this weekend spackling and sanding and painting in an only sort of successful attempt to get it looking ship shape. WHATEVER. WE HAVE A RANGE.
“Maybe you should cook something,” John said. “You know, to get over your residual anger and frustration. Because I bet once you start cooking with this awesome new range, you will feel nothing but love for this process.”
“BEG TO DIFFER,” I said, but I complied, because it’s the end of peach season and I wanted to make peach butter. Last year, our crappy stove defeated my efforts to make my annual apple butter: the gentle burner didn’t ever get hot enough, and when I transferred the butter over to the POWER BOIL burner and looked away for 2 seconds, I returned to an inch-thick layer of carbon coating the bottom of my now-ruined pot. This year was going to be different! I had a precise, responsive, perfectly-heating stove at my disposal! I was going to RULE the peach butter!
And lo, it was amazing. The jam bubbled up quickly and stayed at exactly the temperature I wanted. The range hood whisked away the steam and heat and kept the kitchen nice and cool. I used the other burner to prepare the hot water bath for canning, and damn if new stove didn’t boil the water in no time flat.
And then I got distracted trying to make a rental car reservation and I burned the jam anyway.
The end.
