Life at Oak Grove

A few weeks ago, I was planning to make Pillsbury crescents for the kids at breakfast. I asked my 9 years old to put the tray in the oven when the oven is ready, program the timer for 11 minutes and take it out when it is ready.   Pretty simple instructions for a child who has taken cooking classes since he was 3 years old and now go by himself with his brother who is 7 on Fridays night every once in a while.

Bottom line.  He knew what to do.

In the meantime, I went to do exercises with my husband in the basement.   20 minutes later, I came back upstairs… to find the crescents still on the oven and not cooked.

“Alex – what happened?  Have you forgotten?”

“No mom.  It never beeped…”

Oh Uh.   Apparently the oven never indicated that it reached the level of heat required for the crescent.   I looked at the oven.   Still indicating 350F.  Mmmm!   I open the oven.   It’s cold inside.

*sigh*

Called my neighbor and I was able to cook the crescents there…  *grin*

Fortunately, we had an extended warranty.   So I called.  And someone came two days later to “fix” the oven.   After checking something, which apparently caused sparks according to my son and the guy had to go reset the electrical switch afterward, he proceed to check the element which was the problem.   He changed it for free because of the warranty.

That was the Thursday before Easter by the way.

I was planning to finish a cake for a get-together to my sister-in-law…  wasn’t sure he we could go since my little girl was coughing but I wanted to complete it just in case.

I didn’t touched the oven on Friday.  Saturday morning, I start to finish to cake and bake the 2nd part as the first section was in the freezer.

10 minutes later, the fire alarm goes on in the house…  Fire, Feu being said over and over.   Great!  What’s going on.

I go in the kitchen and quickly realize that the top of the cake is burned, smoke coming out of the oven and the inside of the cake is not cooked.   Sigh.

I called again… I have to wait 48 hours for someone to come and check it out.

When the guy comes back the following week, only my husband is there.    Turns out the regulator is the problem.

Apparently, when you set the oven to 350F, it will go over the 350 a little bit and the regulator will bring it back down to say 340F and then up again… until your cooking is completed.

Well mine wasn’t doing that anymore…   Kept going on… until it smoke the house and the fire alarm goes on.

Needless to say there wasn’t any cake that day.   Besides, the smoke made only matters worse for my daughter.  So we had a quiet Easter at home.

A few days after the technician came, I still hadn’t received any answer as to when the oven would be repaired.   So I called.   The piece was out of stock.   Great.   I had worked in a furniture store in my 20s and I knew what this meant…  Long time to wait.

So I decided to leave it in God’s hands and wait patiently.

Friends of mine couldn’t believe that I would wait so long…

Last week, we were told that it could take 2-3 weeks to get the said piece.   A quick calculation brought me to June 1st…

To be honest I realized that I didn’t use the oven that much.   But this past week-end, my patience reached it’s maximum.   We wanted to try something new but couldn’t because we didn’t have an oven.   But I have told myself that I would give them until end of May before calling again.

Yesterday morning we were out of the house due to dentist appointments.  Yes the six of us at the same time.   Now we are done for 6 months.  *grin*

When we came back home, there was a message on the voice mail from the extended warranty company.    Since it is taking so long to get the piece to repair the oven, it was decided that they will replace it.   I should expect a call from the store where I bought it to get instructions.   An hour after we got back, I got the call from Brault et Martineau.

The model I had is not available anymore so they are offering this one.

Self-Clean – Checked.

Ceramic top – Checked.

I liked the fact that there was five sections to cook…

But then my husband noticed that the two big sections were at the front.  uh oh.  No good.

After checked other stoves, I realized that many are like that. 

So we are heading to the store this morning to check them out.   Husband would like to have convection.   I tend to agree with him.   I think the cakes would look better.

I suspect that early next week I could get my new oven…

I will try to push for early delivery.  After all I had not had an oven for over a month and a half now – well almost.

In the end, I am impressed with myself for not having lost patience during this time of trial…

It does pay to be patient don’t you think?