About seven, eight, maybe nine, months ago I noticed something strange going on in the oven of my kitchen stove. The oven was on, although I have no recollection of what bakery madness I may have been up to, but as I passed by and glanced in the oven window it looked like some small entity was inside with a welding torch. Thinking this was probably not a good sign, I turned the oven off.
Later that day I saw my young master electrician friend and asked him, if it looked like a welding arc going on in the oven, was that was a pretty good indication the element was shot? He assured me that it was and told me to look online to find a replacement.
For some reason, that I'm not really sure about, I just decided to do without an oven. Making that decision turned out to hold an element of surprise.
I was surprised at all the things I have learned to do with a skillet, even cooking a tasty, tender roast on top of the stove. I was surprised at all the things that can be cooked on a counter top pizza cooker, even homemade biscuits. I found the pizza cooker at a yard sale, practically brand new, for 20 bucks......this was $5 more than the cost of a replacement element for the oven, but I remained steadfast in my quest to go ovenless. I was surprised to discover the old metal burner trivet, that belonged to Mother, worked well to keep a casserole from becoming 'one with the pan'.
All these learning surprises have been fun, but with the approaching holiday season, and being the hostess for a large family gathering, I realized that cooking a turkey on a counter top pizza cooker was not going to fly....no pun intended. One year we had soup and sandwiches. Since I can still hear the whining and griping from that menu faux pas, I broke down and ordered the oven element.
The element arrived in a timely fashion and I thought it would be a good idea to clean the oven before installing it. The oven has a self cleaning feature that I had only used once. There is something unsettling about an appliance in the house that can lock its own door and heat up to crematory mode. Plus, I didn't think it was a good idea to break in the new element on its hottest setting.
The can of oven cleaner stated that the oven should be warm before applying. Since that was not an option, I opted for the 'cool oven' method, sprayed the inside of the oven, closed the door and went to bed.
The next morning, I gathered my arsenal of cleaning goodies and set out to wipe the muck out of the oven. I thought it would be much easier if I could take the oven door off. The manual that came with the stove said this was easy to do.
I have every instruction manual that came with every gadget, appliance, tool, toy or whatever that has entered this house. I may not have the item it belonged to, but I have the manual. Instruction manuals are written by men. I know this to be true for two reasons. One, they never read them and two, they did not proof read them before sending them to print.
The instruction manual for the stove stated that, for all models, removing the oven door was accomplished in the same way. All that need be done was to remove two screws, place those screws in the holes in the hinges, shut the oven door slowly until it stopped at a 45 degree angle and pull the oven door up and off the hinges, easy peasy......liar, liar, pants. on. fire.
I removed the two screws, which were not anywhere close to the length shown in the manual, and proceeded to the next step, placing them in the holes of the hinges. There were no holes in the hinges and even if there had been holes in the hinges, the screws were too short to stick all the way through them. I referred back to the manual, surely I had missed a step. I hadn't and I kept looking for the stupid holes in the hinges thinking they might magically appear...they did not. The whole purpose of putting the screws in the holes was to stop the oven door from closing all the way, hence the 45 degree angle, for easy oven door removal. Perhaps I could just pull the door off the hinges without it being anchored at 45 degrees. I pulled, tugged, even grunted and the door never moved. After using a reference to the screws, aimed at the oven door, I replaced the screws.
With bath towels for knee pads, I twisted myself like a contortionist in and around the oven. One hour and two rolls of paper towels later, the oven was clean and I was thinking it would have been easier to just go out and buy a new stove. My husband installed the new element and we watched intently to see if it was going to work. The red glow was a lovely sight.
The oven has not been used yet. I like the way it looks, all nice and clean. Maybe I will just turn it on, open the door, pull up a chair and pretend it's a fireplace.
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