No Stove And A Toaster Oven From An Ex

I left Long Island this morning and it was 58 degrees. I get up to the Red House and it was 38 degrees.  What is going on with this very long winter?  But the weather is not what my current dilemma is, right now I’m currently stove-less and that’s a really big problem.

Yep, true to his word, my contractor finally decided my stove had to go.  Reason being, since we are tearing out the sixth bedroom (I mean really who needs that many bedrooms?) we decided that by eliminating the space over the kitchen (the aforementioned) sixth bedroom, we could have a really awesome, double height kitchen.  Since he actually couldn’t rip out the sixth bedroom with the stove in the way, it had to be removed.

A Very Sorry Stove Indeed

Now, last summer when my sweet son, Nick, came up to visit, he, of course, claimed the sixth bedroom as his because even though it was remote and had no access to a bathroom, unless you went through four other rooms, it had the best view.  He’s not an idiot.  And because he thought this particular bedroom would be his forever and ever, he also decided to start painting the room in the colors that he liked.  At the time, those colors were purple and black.

Wow, A Purple Room!

Looking at the picture now, it doesn’t look that bad, kind of quaintly Victorian with the black trim and such, but painting or no painting, the room had to go. The room before the purple room (a.k.a. the 5th bedroom) had been the previous owners smoking den.  The walls were stained with nicotine and since even the 5th bedroom is not very convenient to get to, I actually can’t even imagine exactly what anyone would do in there.  Well, I can imagine, but since I do try to keep this site borderline R-rated,  I won’t fantasize about the possibilities.

Smokers Den

So, the dormer room is stripped down to the rafters as is the room that’s going to be demolished.  That’s when we found some really cool beams.  Kind of like the beams you see in 5th grade when you’re visiting a house that George Washington slept in!  Well, maybe not that old but you get the idea.

But since the guy who is working on this project is really cool about this house renovation (really), these were his exact words, “Jules, we’re saving that right,” he said pointing to a beam that in my opinion was probably Smithsonian-worthy.  A type of beam one would find in a George Washington-era dwelling? These beams looked like they came over with Christopher Columbus!

Really Cool Beams

But enough history. I didn’t realize how dependent I was on a stove.  Without a stove, you can’t make scrambled eggs, or saute a lovely piece of fish, or steam some vegetables!  Nor can you boil water for all those good things I like to eat – like pasta or mashed potatoes.  I’m not weeping…yet.

When I came up last summer for the first time to try my hand at camping up at the Red House, I rummaged through the garage on Long Island before I left and found some discarded houseware items that Nick had stashed after moving from one apartment to another. For the Red House I was able to claim dishes, pots and pans, and low and behold a toaster oven that an ex-girlfriend’s father had given him when he had been kicked out of the family home for whatever reason.

This is the toaster oven I was dealing with.  It was old and whenever I plugged it in at the Red House, my ceiling lights started flashing on and off.  Cool, I thought!  So, what exactly was I going to make for dinner with that one basically useless appliance?

Toaster Oven Cooking

Well, I brought up some leftover chicken rollatini and put it in the toaster oven to warm up. Unfortunately, I didn’t plan for any other meals and after I ate, I was well, still pretty hungry.  Things didn’t get any better the next day.  I had brought up some hard boiled eggs, stuck a piece of toast in the toaster oven and had some coffee.  Lunch was a yogurt, a banana and when I was hungry a couple of hours later, I made myself a pseudo grilled cheese; two slices of American on white bread in the toaster oven.  I ate it not because it tasted good but because it was hot when I took it out and I was trying to pretend I was eating soup.  Not really, but whatever.

So going forward, yes, we do have the summer to look forward to where grilling will be a viable option, but since the purchase of a new stove to outfit a new kitchen is still Far Far Away, we’ll have to be creative.

Stay tuned.