Posted on August 25, 2009
Cry “Oven!” And Let Slip The Chicken Nuggets of War
Our oven stopped working one day, quite unceremoniously and without fanfare. It simply stopped getting hot. I’ve been meaning to call someone to come fix it for ages now, but for one reason or another, I never got around to it. In a few brief bursts of ignorant enthusiasm, I tried to fix it myself. However, since I’ve been neither trained nor tested in the delicate art of natural gas oven repair, I never met with much success. I thought that I knew what the problem was, and I even formulated a very scientific hypothesis concerning how to make the blasted thing work again. The only problem I kept running into was the bizarre and arcane construction of the accursed appliance, which thwarted my every effort to open it up for surgery and get a good look at its innards. I even called in the big guns one sleepy Sunday, and had my father come take a look at it with me.
He came over, and we went right to work. We pulled the oven out into the middle of the kitchen floor and studied it from all sides, planning out our best attack vector. It was all for naught though, as the oven would prove itself the victor later that day. Overcome by superior construction and spot welding, neither one of us could decide how to penetrate its considerable armor. We tried attacking from the front and were repelled. We came up from underneath, but the oven was ready for that too, and it just hissed a mercaptan-scented giggle at us once we’d spent time removing an incalculable number of screws and bolts, only to find ourself apathetically staring at the gleaming horror of seamless sheet metal. We eventually admitted defeat, and reluctantly returned the foul champion to its throne in the alcove of my kitchen.
So, it was with some measure of trepidation that I approached the oven again this weekend, determined to best it with one final push on the linoleum tiled battlefield of my kitchen floor. Brittany and I had settled in for a brief afternoon nap earlier in the day, which turned out to be far briefer for myself than it was for her. Awakened by some unseen force, I felt drawn to the kitchen, where the shining metal of my enemy waited in mocking silence. I grabbed my toolkit, steeled my nerves, screwed up my resolve and, undaunted, I returned once again into the fray.
I pulled the oven back into the middle of the floor and, planning a rear assault this time, I twirled it around as far as I could get it to turn. It was still tethered to the gas line, and I would have to shut off the flow of gas and disconnect it before I could turn it around far enough to work on. Bending myself into impossible positions, I made like a circus contortionist as I worked my way back to the lever that controls the flow of gas. The oven was ready for this, though, and it had taken steps to halt my progress. The lever, after probably decades of inattention and neglect due to the infrequent need one might have to operate it, refused to yield to my limited human strength. I grabbed a wrench and cautiously tapped at it, before the image of a broken gas line was mentally projected onto the back of my eyeballs by the more sensible areas of my mortal brain. Understanding that I was probably going to fail at this latest attempt to repair the oven anyway, I didn’t want to add the expense and hassle (not to mention overwhelming danger) of a gas leak to my shameful list of failures. Instead, I chose to leave it alone and to get back to it later, should I be able to buck the odds and actually find a way into the oven’s insides.
I went in for a combined assault this time, concentrating on a frontal charge followed by a sharp push from underneath. This proved to be an effective strategy. I removed the storage bin from the front of the oven, and found the tiny hidden bolts that released the seamless bit of metal my father and I had encountered during our unsuccessful campaign. Removing that, I was able to target the source of my frustration: the oven ignitor. Excited by the sight of my quarry being so close, I quickly reached for it before remembering that I had not yet cut off the gas. However, since I was already elbow-deep in metal and grease, I decided to Risk It All and just go in for the kill, before the oven had time to react to my plundering and devise a new defensive strategy.
After some more contortions and Houdini-like joint dislocations used to try and fit my giant man hands into impossibly small spaces with sharp and bloodthirsty edges, I was able to remove the bolts securing the ignitor. It was then, with the ignitor released but still inaccessible, that my years of misspent youth I “wasted away” playing Tetris came into service. After several minutes of twisting and turning the bulky ignitor, I was able to wrangle it from the deceptively small hole from which it was implausibly mounted. Finally, after twenty to thirty minutes spent inverted like some modern day, mechanical-minded Michelangelo, I emerged from under the belly of the beast. But my work was not yet done.
The broiler located at the top of my oven uses its own ignitor, which I reasoned was likely the same part as the one used by the oven itself. In a great and questionable sort of irony, this ignitor was both easy to get to and simple to remove. Once I had it in hand, I checked it against the broken one, and it was then that I finally outsmarted my oven. It was, in fact, the same exact part – right down to the little stickers that some good Samaritan factory worker had placed on each of them with considerable foresight and unsolicited helpfulness. Armed with the knowledge that I was probably not going to blow myself up if I attached and mounted the broiler ignitor to replace the faulty oven ignitor, I set about my task.
It was pretty much the same thing as I’ve already described, only in reverse this time. The ignitor was a bit more difficult to mount than it was to remove, but I managed to Jenga it into place and bolt it down. I then reassembled the various bits and bobs of the oven, and secured all of the large sections of alarmingly sharp metal to the equally sharp and murderous edges of the oven’s interior. I returned the storage bin to the front, and pushed the defeated beast back into its alcove. Then, I turned it on. And sprinted to the living room.
Just in case, you know. Just a precaution against the remote possibility that I had just MacGyvered myself into the exploding fury of an early grave.
Fortunately, Richard Dean Anderson taught me well in my formative years (before he started slumming around the cesspit of SyFy programming), and not only did I not die, but I returned to the kitchen to find the warm glow of a fully functioning oven. I did it! I conquered the beast! Armed with nothing more than gross arrogance and no official training along with a callous disregard for personal safety, I faced down my mechanical foe and bested him with the strength of my will alone. Or maybe I just got lucky. It’s a toss-up.
So tonight, in celebration of my victory, I am returning once again to where I belong: in the kitchen, chopping and stirring and mixing up delicious food for my friends and family. I’m headed to the store soon, to acquire the varied and mysterious reagents needed for my Epicurean potions. Tonight, I seek not only to revel in the spoils of war, but I am taking on a new task of titanic improbability: I am going to get Trey to eat healthy chicken nuggets!
My sister has an interesting sounding recipe up on her own blog (which she has apparently stopped concerning herself with, as the latest update is from an hour past forever ago), but she’s gone and added ground flaxseed to it. I’m sorry, but I don’t go in for all of the New Age bibblebabble surrounding the latest and greatest miracle foods. In fact, despite all the hype surrounding how good flaxseed is for you, precious little actual science has been done to either
confirm or deny the claims. Further still, some of the miracle benefits of the seed seem in direct contradiction to current knowledge, considering that high levels of Alpha Linoleic Acid actually increases the risk of prostate cancer by around 300% – a far cry from curing or preventing the very same cancer, as the waterheaded advocates of organic, holistic diets like to claim. Not only does flaxseed contain traces of cyano-glycoside linamarin (think cyanide), but some studies have actually classified flaxseed oil as a hazardous substance. There’s another name for flaxseed oil, you know. It’s called furniture polish. How can that be good for you?!
No, I’m going to try my own recipe tonight. It’ll be simple and quick, with fresh ingredients and healthy preparation. Some breadcrumbs (maybe Panko), a little parmesan, a touch of basil, thyme, garlic powder, a sprinkle of salt and a dash of pepper, and that should be all it takes. Throw in some eggs and water along with a touch of butter, and you have yourself the ingredients for delicious chicken nuggets. A little soak in the wet stuff followed by a roll in the dry stuff, and all that’s left is to toss them in the oven until they’re crispy and delicious and totally irresistible to the dubious palate of a three-year-old boy. That’s the plan, anyway. I might just wind up burning the house down and taking the family to McDonald’s. It could go either way…
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