Practical and Spiritual Reflections on Living with a Temperamental Oven

(Background: I’ve had five different stoves since early Summer, 2018! The first one had both carbon monoxide and gas leaks. The second and third AND fourth had gas leaks! The fifth, my current, runs safely—no toxicities emitted. G-d be thanked (along with my building’s management.) BUT it is as temperamental as a wood stove as far as the oven goes. Not only does it run very hot—more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the dial setting would indicate—but also it has no insulation and the heat is concentrated on its top portion, especially on one side of the oven.)

Home economists would prescribe use of a free-standing oven thermometer. Basically, my mobility disorder comes down to severe tremor, and I would knock a thermometer over in the course of inserting/removing pans. So much for the thermometer that I bought long ago when less tremulous—it hangs near the sink now for decoration!

The extent of the problem is as follows. For a recipe for an oven-baked Indian rice pilaf that called for a baking time of 50 minutes at 350 degrees, I must adjust the time and temp to 40 minutes at 250 degrees this morning!

Furthermore, pans need to be adjusted up and down as well as turned about.

Such expertise did not come easily. So many batches of baked goods burned at top or bottom before I learned to check as early as when the first one-third of the recipe’s stated time had elapsed. In addition, I learned to reduce the temperature of the oven by 100 degrees from the recipe’s stated heat level.

It reminds me of the time when I lived in an apartment where the only source of heat was a fireplace. Keeping the wood types (size, tree origin) and amounts accurate so as to maintain some warmth was a learning experience indeed.

G-d never gives us anything that we can’t handle. Angels hover over us from birth to manage our exercise of free will morally while G-d’s planned course of events, which Jews consider as a never-diminishing series of tests of character, works itself out. Everything eventually turns out for the good. It is up to us to be steadfast when we can’t see the why, which is always our human condition. When we have worked out the problems that G-d sent us to Earth to repair, He calls us home.