Lovin’ the Oven
As is often the case, when we moved into our Bucerias home the appliances were included. Not long after, however, the oven starter pooched. It was necessary to flick a flame over the pilot light every time we wanted to cook. I read somewhere that fire and propane don’t mix well. This made me very nervous. Very. Nervous.
Dennis is the King of all things BBQ-ery, but sometimes you just gotta have a kitchen made meal, especially during the rainy season. The wet, steamy summers make it too hot to use the rooftop BBQ. The stove burners worked just fine, so we simply bought a toaster oven to cover the loss of the oven option, until such time as the need struck to replace the entire unit.
The time came and we recently purchased a brand new oven from El Tio Sam. Don’t you just love getting a new appliance? I remember using the giant box as a play fort when we got a new fridge when I was a kid. And, twenty years later, I remember my own kids playing in our new fridge box. Coloring the outside like a red race car with black tires and cut-out windows. I also remember wondering one afternoon why it was so quiet, (parents, you know that sudden fear – no noise usually means some level of mischief is being manufactured) and finding them both fast asleep inside their racing car fort.
Although happy and excited to have a new stove, I couldn’t figure out a few essential moves. The stove-top elements work well. Frying eggs, boiling water for pasta, all good. But I could not for the life of me figure out how to heat the oven past 260 degrees. You know, 350 degrees is such the norm, for so many dishes. How can I possibly store the toaster oven away before figuring out the big oven? Just some of the challenges; everything’s digital – set the temperature, set the timer, and, it’s all in Spanish. Far too advanced for my relaxed brain.
I was nine years old when Canada adopted the metric system. Prior to that, my family built a cottage in Muskoka, where, of course, I was instrumental in the construction; helping with the measuring, sawing and cementing, and fetching the Robertson or the Phillips. I knew only inches and feet, gallons and ounces, and Fahrenheit. To this day I convert pretty much any measurement to Imperial. 1 metre? Approximately 3 feet. 1 litre? Approximately 3.5 cups, or 28 ounces. Dennis rolls his eyes when I still convert pesos to Canadian dollars in my head. I like to know the value of what I’m getting, and for the first five decades of my life I used Canadian dollars so that’s my base.
To date it has worked like a charm. I mean, I’m not levelling table legs or anything.
As my dad says, “Measure twice, cut once.”
Well, this time it bit me back. By now I’m sure you’ve deduced that my new oven uses metric everything. And digital. And Spanish. That combination threw me for a loop. Why can’t I get the oven to heat higher than 260 degrees? Because non-industrial ovens would have no need to cook something over 500 degrees Fahrenheit! As Dennis said, “We’re not minting coins.”
I’ve finally packed away the toaster oven for a rainy day.
Of course, I still use my online converter to learn what is, say, 250F or 400F in Celcius. I’ve committed to memory the usual 350F = 177C. Off to make dinner – stuffed chicken breasts with roasted root vegetables!
