Essay: Cooking with Electric

“Cooking with electric is a lot cleaner” my mother had said to me when I told her the only think wrong with my new kitchen is that it came with an electric range oven. “Not the way I do it” I thought as I walked into the kitchen wondering where the smoke alarms are located in my new house. A dark cloud was swirling around the ceiling and looked like it was heading towards the living room. I quickly hit the switch and turned on the 2 speed overhead fan to “high suck”.

My new stove is one of those flat cook tops with four black doily patterns of different sizes to assist me in knowing where to set my pan down. The woman I bought the house from left me a small container of the special gook that I am to use in cleaning the top. The first time my noodles boiled over, I grabbed the cleaner container as I ran outside to wait while the smoke cleared and allowed the kitchen to cool off a bit. It says right there on the label to use the right size pan for the doily pattern. As far as I can tell that is about the only thing that I have done right so far. That, and waiting for the stove top to cool before applying the product. I did that right.

I am attempting to make a piece of toast for breakfast ... no big deal one would think. Not having a toaster, I place a slice of bread in my new little non-stick skillet and set it on the appropriate doily. In my defense it has worked before, but not today. I grabbed the smoking pan and ran outside. It smells bad but I have to eat it. In order to get on the other side of this learning curve, I had made myself a promise that I would eat whatever mistake I made. I would learn faster and besides, they say a little charcoal is good for you. A quick glance told me that only the bottom quarter of the bread was burned. Do-able!

Thank God I don’t have a parrot. My girlfriend told me that she cannot use non-stick cookware because if it gets too hot it emits a gas that would kill her birds. They would be holding their little throats and gagging for clean air if they saw the smoking skillet I was holding. I wonder for a nano-second about what level of emitting fumes would be harmful for a human. “Don’t worry about it”, I think to myself, “just one of the reasons we don’t have birds”. I am not ashamed to admit, for now obvious reasons, that I adore my non-stick cookware.

With a sigh, I head towards the kitchen. I think it is safe to turn off the overhead fan. “You will love it when you get used to it; why I would love to have a stove like that”, my mom had said. “You can have the darn thing”, I have muttered to myself several times since then, “and give me a REAL stove ~ with gas! ~ where “Off” is “Off’ ~~ and “On” has flames !”

* annette