Cranberry Onion Confit

The house smells like Thanksgiving.

Caution: Smugness and Self-Satisfaction in Use

The water is turned on, and it's not going where it shouldn't. The project can move forward. I didn't even set the studs on fire with my torch (thanks to a heat shield I fashioned out of a piece of sheet metal).

Vaya con Dios, Magic Chef

Old Magic Chef:

New Kenmore:

Just in time for Thanksgiving. The oven is considerably larger.

Ooh, Neat! There's a Little Tiny Man Arc-Welding in our Oven!

Yesterday evening, Lindz and I were in the kitchen. I had just handed her a beer, and she was telling me about her day at work. While she was recounting tales of her boss's amazing foolishness, I was baking pita chips for us to snack on. The conversation abruptly stopped when we heard a noise. It was something that resembled buzzing, humming and sputtering. Smoke and bright, white light was visible though the oven vent beneath one of the burners. I furrowed my brow and looked in the oven. Sparks and orange magma greeted my pessimistic expectations. "How about we turn that off, babe?" my wife suggested.
"Yes, I believe that's a wise notion, my cherry-cheeked goddess." I turned off the bake element, and we finished the last sentence of the interrupted conversation. I finished the pita chips with the broiler element, narrowly avoiding burning them.
"We're going to need something by Thanksgiving," Lindz said, wearing a hard-to-describe combination of smirk and grimace. It's the facial expression used by homeowners when confronted by something expensive that was working fine moments earlier.
"Yep," I replied, adopting the smirk-grimace.




Anyway, The biscuit-colored Magic Chef owes us little or nothing. I think it's 25 years old. It probably would have failed sooner, but the previous owner of the house seems to have been as afraid of cooking as he was of attaching anything with more than 1/2 the requisite number of screws. The new Kenmore range (model 94002, a nice, bottom-of-the-line coil top) arrives on Saturday. I didn't even look at radiant glass tops. I don't trust that there new-fangled stuff. Cheap ranges do everything I need. I'm not sure how much it would be to replace this bake element, but I'm not putting money into this old thing.

Foray into Plumbing

Well, I've soldered a few pipe joints. It's fun to use a propane torch. I originally bought the torch for doing creme brulee and roasting peppers. It seems that one can use it for this stuff, too. I haven't worked on the supply pipes yet (translation: I haven't shut off the water, screwed something up and necessitated a night in a hotel), but I built the riser to the showerhead, the elbow that goes down to the faucet (shown) and the wooden supports that will hold them. The previous work is unimpressive (that is, if you are impressed by watertightness and structural integrity). I want to pressure-test my joints before I start sawing supply lines in the wall, but my confidence has increased.

Misshapen Pizza

Friday night, I made this misshapen pizza with a crust of 75/25 bread flour/whole wheat flour. It's topped with sauteed mushrooms with garlic, arugula, feta, parmiggiano and mozzarella. Lindz and I drank a tasty Australian shiraz from Costco with it.