So after various perfectly understandable delays, our new electric stove arrived today. It’s a beauty: A flat ceramic top, and all shiny and clean and new. Unfortunately, we need an electrician to hook it up, and possibly a correct outlet installed (I think it’s a matter of 220 vs 110, but this is so far out of my expertise I’m almost afraid to even speculate for fear I’ll manage to burn the house down by doing so). An electrician is coming tomorrow, but I have my doubts that getting it all set up will be quick and simple; the wiring in this house is such that we can’t run the microwave and the air conditioner at the same time.
I’ve also been busy with several other things and haven’t had time to keep up with the cooking; even with the microwave cookbook, which is in this month’s rotation, I haven’t had time to really go through to figure out something I could cook. Though I did notice that in the section on pastas, the recipes directed you to cook the noodles conventionally and do sauces or final assembly of things like lasagna in the microwave. So I guess that answers my question about how you do the sustained-boil business in a microwave: you don’t.
Anyway, this week brings me into the really sustained period of being too busy to do much more than breathe, so even if the electrician’s visit tomorrow results in a safely connected stove that same day, I don’t expect to get caught up on the blog or even do much cooking until at least the week of the 25th. Theoretically this means I can afford to be philosophical about it if the electrician discovers that this business is going to be more complicated than everyone thought. I’m not allowing myself to start worrying about Thanksgiving until Nov. 2.