At the Kitchen Table
A few weeks ago, the wall oven developed an ignition problem, so I took to leaving it on all the time, set at low. This was far from satisfactory, of course, but the problem went unfixed for so long because I just didn't think about it during the daytime, and at night there was no one to call.
After a wearying round of calls, on Thursday, to Gracious Home - I'd bought the oven there, and expected them to be able to supply me with the name and number of a repair outfit, only to find that they weren't - I got out the Yellow Pages for the first time this century and came across a service on 125th Street. "I hope that you can help me," I told the gentleman who answered the phone. "That is what we are here for," was his reassuring reply. And, indeed, two repairmen were at the apartment within a few hours.
But guess who'd remembered to turn the oven off only an hour before they got here.
The oven was still far too hot to touch, much less to work with. Even so, I'm not entirely sure that the men wouldn't have had to come back anyway. Why should they have been carrying around a new igniter? Which is what they installed yesterday, when they came back in the late afternoon. I was able to use the oven Thursday night, too. I jiggled the dial a bit and eventually the oven came on, allowing me to make Suprêmes de Volaille aux Champignons, from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Julia Child's recipe for four is very easily halved. Rather than parrot her, I'll tell you how I make this classic variation on a theme in my own way.
Continue reading about Suprêmes de Volaille aux Champignons at Portico.
