A Real Oven Repair Technician

I was hoping Head Maintenance Guy would delay responding to the workorder I’d submitted eleven days ago — re the oven no longer working, until Assistant Maintenance Guy returned from his honeymoon.

Alas, I guess HMG stalled as long as he thought he could get away with and showed up on Tuesday.

He was uncharacteristically polite. I saw and felt no signs of an attitude.

After turning the oven on, sticking his hand in the oven, saying he felt heat, inviting me to stick my hand in the oven where I also felt heat, he stuck some thingamajig in, pulled it out, looked at whatever the thingamajig had registered then pronounced the oven as A-Okay, working just fine.

What do I know, thought I. I could have been wrong or perhaps it was one of those situations where something doesn’t work until the repairman shows up and then it works fine. So, I accepted HMG’s pronunciation and, as soon as he left, I put a meal of salmon and zucchini in the oven for dinner, cook time expected to be around 15/20 minutes.

One hour later, the meal was a little warm but totally absolutely unequivocally uncooked.

With the world having gone cra cra — people nutting up daily, going off the deep end, I don’t want to push HMG over the edge and into making me a victim of a cra cra by doing something like coming up here mad that I’ve submitted another workorder on the oven he pronounced A-Okay, jimmy rigging it to self-destruct, taking me with it next time I tried to use it. I’ll just wait until I see HMG out and about, approach and tell him how that salmon/zucchini cook went and leave it at that until AMG returns.

In the meantime, I’m still enjoyed the occasional s’more made in the mini oven I purchased.

And I do mean occasional because, with me working on getting my cholesterol and sodium numbers under control, these tasty little high in sodium and sugar treats are not a good option.

A better option are the old-fashioned hot water cornbread patties I’ve been binging on ever since Jennifer, over at Sparrow Tree Lane, posted her "late mother-in-law and Tyler’s grandmother Edythe’s" recipe for cornbread fritters, which reminded me of how I’d practically lived off hot water cornbread through most of my childhood because it was then considered "poor people food" — the simple ingredients of cornbread and water went a long way in helping my mother provide for six of us.

There are no eggs in these fritters, thus no cholesterol, I’m able to adjust the salt to a tiny pinch, thus very little sodium and no sugar, even when I decide to go sweet by adding a little stevia. They don’t have to be oily — a little dab can do ya.