A Road Less Travelled

Theresa likes vintage stoves. I’m rather ambivalent myself, understanding the theory “old things look cooler”, but really feeling about stoves the same way I do about cars: it should work. Really, that’s about it. People talk about cool cars, and cars that are fun to drive, and I’m back at, “It runs right? Four wheels? Brakes? Maybe AC and and a CD player if it’s really snazzy.”

So, when we moved in here and started using Theresa’s vintage stove again, I found it slightly inconvenient, but not much worth noting. The oven ran hot enough to fire pottery and possibly incinerate evidence, but this was controllable by simply keeping it turned down to 70 degrees, at which setting it chugged along at about 350 degrees. Over time this stove developed a strong dislike for me, and decided to mix things up a little by occasionally refusing to cook hot enough, but only when I was cooking.

When we replaced it with a different vintage stove I was pleased to have escaped the stove that hated me. The ‘new’ stove still had a small oven, but this oven did not run hot enough to fire pottery. In fact, we soon discovered it didn’t really run hot enough to cook food. Oh, it worked fine if you remembered to preheat it two hours beforehand, and didn’t open the oven door at all while it was cooking, but this soon became tiresome. It turned out that the stove had come from the country and was set up to use propane, which comes out at a higher pressure than natural gas for city stoves. This also explained why half the burners didn’t get hot enough to boil water.

All this to explain why there was great excitement and rejoicing when James and Theresa bought a new stove. Yes, a new one! It’s pretty and shiny, and the burners get hot enough to boil water! And the oven not only heats up properly, but is full-sized! Wheee!!!

For those who share my excitement over this kind of thing, I provide pictures.