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Hi, you guys! Hi! Happy this-close-to-2011 to you and yours.
Because I know that on New Year's Eve, all thoughts turn to quotidian domestic matters, I have a question for those of you who know about these things, while I'm patiently waiting for 30+ minutes to elapse: at what point is it advisable to just write an old kitchen range off and buy a new one? And hey, you probably want details so you can make an informed decision, I'm guessing. You are responsible, I know! You don't want to leap in without knowing the details, and tell me to do something I'll later regret! I completely understand. I'm that way too. So.
After the weekend, I am officially Back on the Wagon as regards diet, so as my last hurrah, I am making a meat pie that my mother used to make and that I am craving something embarrassingly fierce, and I got all the way through the considerable prep, chopping and browning and sautéing and grating and seasoning and crusting (huh, okay, that just sounds kind of gross), and I even cut out little leaf shapes to decorate the top, and I went to put the pie in the oven, and it wasn't on, and no amount of fiddling and lighting of pilots and so forth could induce it to stay on.
Mind, this crotchety range behavior has been going on for a while. It's an old gas range, I'd say from the style of it a good 35 years old. It came with the house, and from my first time using it, it's never worked exactly well. The stove's great, granted -- I do so love me a gas stove -- but the oven has always smoked at any temperature higher than 375 degrees F, as in, set the smoke alarm off unless I closed the kitchen door and opened the back door for ventilation, not the most convenient of setups when it's, say, raining, or twenty degrees (or ninety degrees) out. And lately, I have had to fiddle with the range in the aforementioned manner to get the oven to come on. Plus the clock and timer don't work, and everyone knows that those are the best parts of a range!
So here I am, baking a meat pie in a toaster oven, which thank the merciful and sweet-smelling baby Jesus that the pie actually fit into it, and waiting to see if pies bake properly in toaster ovens. And do you know that I have never in all my forty-plus years and dozen or so places of residence as an adult had to buy a range? It's totally true. I've never even had to worry about having one repaired, because the couple of times the range in the place I was living in went haywire, I was able to pick up the phone and call a landlord, and voilĂ ! it repaired itself as if by magic.
Now, though. Not having a landlord to call, I must decide for myself what to do. And I'm no good at that, so I here I am asking for advice. What do you think, trustworthy friends?
Because I know that on New Year's Eve, all thoughts turn to quotidian domestic matters, I have a question for those of you who know about these things, while I'm patiently waiting for 30+ minutes to elapse: at what point is it advisable to just write an old kitchen range off and buy a new one? And hey, you probably want details so you can make an informed decision, I'm guessing. You are responsible, I know! You don't want to leap in without knowing the details, and tell me to do something I'll later regret! I completely understand. I'm that way too. So.
After the weekend, I am officially Back on the Wagon as regards diet, so as my last hurrah, I am making a meat pie that my mother used to make and that I am craving something embarrassingly fierce, and I got all the way through the considerable prep, chopping and browning and sautéing and grating and seasoning and crusting (huh, okay, that just sounds kind of gross), and I even cut out little leaf shapes to decorate the top, and I went to put the pie in the oven, and it wasn't on, and no amount of fiddling and lighting of pilots and so forth could induce it to stay on.
Mind, this crotchety range behavior has been going on for a while. It's an old gas range, I'd say from the style of it a good 35 years old. It came with the house, and from my first time using it, it's never worked exactly well. The stove's great, granted -- I do so love me a gas stove -- but the oven has always smoked at any temperature higher than 375 degrees F, as in, set the smoke alarm off unless I closed the kitchen door and opened the back door for ventilation, not the most convenient of setups when it's, say, raining, or twenty degrees (or ninety degrees) out. And lately, I have had to fiddle with the range in the aforementioned manner to get the oven to come on. Plus the clock and timer don't work, and everyone knows that those are the best parts of a range!
So here I am, baking a meat pie in a toaster oven, which thank the merciful and sweet-smelling baby Jesus that the pie actually fit into it, and waiting to see if pies bake properly in toaster ovens. And do you know that I have never in all my forty-plus years and dozen or so places of residence as an adult had to buy a range? It's totally true. I've never even had to worry about having one repaired, because the couple of times the range in the place I was living in went haywire, I was able to pick up the phone and call a landlord, and voilĂ ! it repaired itself as if by magic.
Now, though. Not having a landlord to call, I must decide for myself what to do. And I'm no good at that, so I here I am asking for advice. What do you think, trustworthy friends?
