Julia Child’s Stove and Ovens

Yesterday, we purchased a new gas range. Our current range has served us faithfully for thirty-five years. It is the last appliance left standing from the then all new suite of home appliances that we bought when we first moved into our house. Lately though, being so long in the tooth, it has begun to show its age. It has acquired an idiosyncrasy. The stove has electronic ignition, but with its new quirk, the electronic ignition ceases to work, when the oven is warm. This isn’t too inconvenient with the stove top burners, because we can always light those burners manually with kitchen matches, but relighting the oven with matches is a bridge too far for us. 364 days out of the year even this defect is not a problem, but that one day out of the year, Thanksgiving, is fast approaching. We are expecting a full house this year and at least one of our guests wants to help in the kitchen. Never mind the embarrassment of having to apologize for our old range, but with several cooks in the kitchen, the opportunity for someone to inadvertently turn off the stove would lead to delay and disruption in the kitchen choreography of supper preparation.

Shopping began on the Internet. I found a Good Housekeeping article that recommended ranges. Picking their best choice led us to Home Depot. Braving the ice and cold, we ventured over there. They didn’t have in stock the model that we were interested in, but they did have other members of the LG line. So, we ended up buying one sight unseen. A mitigating factor is that the one we wanted was discounted 55%. We expect delivery and installation next week. That doesn’t give us a whole lot of time to familiarize ourselves with the new range before the big day, but if worse comes to worse, we could always take a page from the movie A Christmas Story and dine out with Chinese or maybe Vietnamese, with our new range playing the part of the Bumpus hounds.