New Stove!

The old one had uneven burners, the oven knob had broken so you had to guess what the temperature was and then back it up with a thermometer inside, and one knob on the stove top had broken off as well, not just snapped off but snapped apart so super glue wouldn't hold it together to snap it back on.

It's ironic that the stove we replaced was bought a day before Thanksgiving in 1989, when the old stove at Dave's house broke. The 1989 stove did last 18 years. We tried to see if we could replace the heating coil in it this time, but it was configured so you couldn't just pull the coil out and replace it. Our new one allows you to unscrew the bracket holding the coil in, so in the future we may be more lucky. We waited until after Christmas to buy it and you may have read about our grilling fiasco of the Christmas roast.

The old stove was almond, the one before at this house I got as a cast off from the mother of a secretary down the hall, and it was avocado green. Now our choices were black, white or stainless steel. Almond was not available, neither was avocado nor harvest gold.

We felt bad that we were just buying a new one rather than trying to save the old one, but Dave felt reassured that besides the oven no longer working,it was time to get a new one when the light wouldn't work anymore when the burners were on. When you have a third grader cooking on the stove top, you want her to know that the burner is still on and she should turn it off. Our third grader loves to fry herself egg whites, a habit she started in second grade.

So we bit the bullet and went for another new one. Dave is excited because there is a window to the oven and you can view inside with the oven light, without having to open the door and changing the temperature.

This one even has a way of turning the whole thing off for Sabbath, which we don't do, but it is amazing all the things it can do, like start a frozen casserole in the middle of the afternoon, even if you aren't there, bake it to specification and then turn itself down to keep it warm for an hour. And the cooktop surface is flat, so the pans heat more evenly, which will hopefully save a little bit of energy.

There was too much snow for the delivery guys to get the big 40 foot box truck up the winding drive, so they brought the old one down and took the new one up on a dolly. The drivers were so nice that Dave gave them an extra $20.00 for their efforts. I did have a neighbor ready to bring his pickup truck to help us, if need be, which meant I had to call him at 6:40 am (the drivers called at 6:25 to say they were on the way). When they didn't come for half an hour past when they said they'd come, I drove up the hill and found them and had them follow me down into the valley and showed them where the turn around was. They were cheerful and polite. Our dog kissed them on the cheek as they were strapping the stove on the dolly.

May it last many years.