Yesterday, as suggested by Flylady (a house organizing website) I set my timer and cleaned for 30 minutes and when the alarm went off I sat at the computer for 30 minutes. Back again I went for 30 minutes of cleaning (in various "zones", the dining room, entryway and the kitchen) and then back to the computer again. Well I got about 4 hours of work done yesterday and two "zones" clean, but I need to get back to it today. Unfortunately, NO! FORTUNATELY! I have a patchwork day today so Tetsu may just have to live in the nicely cleaned dining room and kitchen and cope with the rest of the house all in a muddle. (Of course I have Saturday to clean too though... if I'm really determined...)
Oh, one screw in the cog was that Wednesday night I was making granola, an extra large batch of granola, to leave for Tetsu's breakfasts for the month. I stirred up the oatmeal, cornflakes, okara, wheat puffs, walnuts, sesame seeds, almonds, soy powder, banana chips, oil, coconut and honey; spread half of it on two cookie sheets, turned on the oven and...
"Spark! Flash! Fizzle!"
My oven blew a fuse. Well, just trying to unplug the electric oven was like dancing over a cobra (actually the cord wasn't doing anything after the first few sparks). I've had this tiny over for nearly 30 years so it has served me well, but this is a must in my list of kitchen appliances. I'm sure not going to be able to buy an oven a day or so before I go to the States... but I have all this unbaked granola here... And Japanese housewives don't really use ovens, or if they do, they have these tiny (tinier than mine!) combination microwave-oven things. It's not like I can just ask my neighbor if I can use her oven for an hour or so...
They only people I know who have a good sized oven are Marlene (and rats, she's living in Hong Kong now) and Mrs. Furui. So I called Mrs. Furui and today, while we are having our patchwork gathering, I will be jumping up and down shuffling cookie sheets full of granola in and out of her oven. It takes a bit of roasting, and stirring and roasting and stirring again. Not a job I'd like to do when I could be chatting with friends over patchwork but all in the name of love for my husband (and I don't want to waste my unbaked granola.)
You have put in a lot of love for Tetsu-san in the cleaning and granola making. I hope in return you will get a new oven!
ReplyDeleteJapanese ovens have improved over that little box one set on top of a burner 50-some years ago ... But I think the demand for a "real" oven must be very light. The one we had at our last place was so small there was hardly room for much more than cookies. At Christmas I had to measure every turkey in the store to find one small enough to fit. The one we had here when we moved back had been used for years by my SIL and I doubt it had ever been cleaned ... it was a giant cockroach hoy-hoy. I saved up all my teaching money until I could replace it with a German AEG oven. I LOVE that oven and all its features ... and instructions in many languages including English!
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