Well, over the holidays I took the chance and now I see that it wasn’t the best idea….
My stove was on fire this morning. Yeah. Fun times.
Let me start at the beginning since I do so love to tell a good story. I’d baked an apple pie in the oven for Christmas dinner. I used apples from our tree, apples that we had pre-sliced, pre-diced and froze in the freezer for such an occasion. Unfortunately, this variety of apple is *pretty* juicy, and freezing them wasn’t such a great idea because when they thawed, they were like little cubes of applesauce mush. Still, we all wanted apple pie and I was loathe to run to the grocery store on Christmas morning for a can of that pre-processed slop they call “apple pie filling.”
So I took the chance and made… well, it turned out to be applesauce pie. lol. Even though I’d set the pie pan on a round metal cookie sheet to catch drips, the pie virtually melted at the bottom of my stove (I have an electric stove so you can imagine the fun it is to clean the caramelized apple sugars that spill all over it). It created quite a bit of smoke BUT the smoke detectors didn’t go off! Now that I think about it, I’m not sure if that’s a silver lining or if it’s another thing I should be worried about….
Anyway…
I’ve been pretty busy with a zillion things (half of them emergencies or urgent matters) since Christmas, so I procrastinated cleaning the oven. We don’t use the oven all that much, so I knew I could wait for a more convenient time. Like this morning. My oven has a “self cleaning” mode. You lock the door and turn the dial to “clean” and the oven basically heats up to a billion degrees and incinerates all the dirt in the oven to ash. I’m in a hurry, I lock the door, I flip the dial and I’m off to do all the other things I have to cram in today. About a half an hour later, I hear my husband call me. He called me “Beck.” I thought that was odd, he rarely ever ever calls me that. I think this is perhaps the second or third time he’s ever called me that in our 22 years together.
“Beck.”
Odd. Why is he calling me that? I wonder. “Yes?”
“Uh. There are flames coming out of the oven.”
MAD DASH TO THE KITCHEN.
I see flames and heavy smoke shooting out from the bottom of the oven door, with more smoke belching out of the oven vent. The kitchen is thick with Los-Angeles-style smog.
“Oh no!” I flip the dial to “off” and watch as the flames continue to lick the bottom of the oven door. I ponder whether I should open the door or not. I hesitate, knowing that opening the door will create a whoosh of oxygen inside the stove, which will feed the flames inside…. oh boy. I pray that the fire goes out on its own. I don’t know what to do. The house is filling with huge, swirling clouds of smoke.
We rush around the house, opening windows. The kids groan (it’s 16 degrees out today, a bummer day for driving smoke out of the house) but the cat is wildly excited hopping from open window to window.
I check and see that the flames have disappeared. They have, whew. But then I got that sinking feeling that my stove is probably dead. I’d JUST said to my husband that morning that the stove has been a really terrific appliance- we got it when we bought the house 16 years ago, and it’s been in perfect condition since then. Famous last words, lol.
The only thing I could do about the stove right now was wait until the lock mechanism let me in. It locks automatically at high temperatures and unlocks when the sensor senses that the temps won’t incinerate me when I open the door. I sit down and it is then that I realize:
OH MAN. I never got a photo of the flames for the blog!
Bad, bad blogger!!
I don’t know about you, but I am always amazed at those times when folks just seemed to have their cameras at the ready, snapping the most terrific moment in time for the world to see… but I always miss that opportunity. I guess it’s because I’m just too durn busy doing silly thing like putting out fires. Rats. I’M SUCH A LOSER!! 
There’s no way I’m buying a new stove right now… So my heart is in my stomach…. and then I suddenly think: “Hey, I don’t think we even need a stove.” When we gutted and renovated the kitchen in 2010, we had to cook and eat in the garage. I had purchased a nice electric skillet, a small hot plate and we grilled out food on the barbecue. I think I would rather NOT have a stove, come to think of it. It’s a huge electricity eater and it takes up a lot of space in the kitchen. I think I can get one of those electric oven roasters and do marvelously well with that. I checked online and these suckers can cook a 22-pound turkey, bake casseroles- they can do anything a regular over does except bake a cake or pie. And maybe for me, that’s a very, very good thing….
4. January 2012 at 2:47 pm
well, you learn a new way to set your oven on fire everyday lol
my sister caught our oven on fire growing up baking a cake. my dad proceeded to buy a fire extinguisher after that
you can’t use the burners anymore? I barely use my oven and it is sooooooo filthy but mine doesn’t have a self cleaner thingy and I’m not willing to clean it for hours to try to get it respectable looking
4. January 2012 at 4:15 pm
I never knew you could start an oven on fire that way. This is a great thing to know and I will keep it filed away in my brain.
4. January 2012 at 4:54 pm
My stove just moaned, rolled over, and died. We must have done some mighty cooking over Christmas time!!!
4. January 2012 at 7:05 pm
Photoshop was invented for us bloggers who don’t stop to take photos when there are flames present. ;)
Bummer about the stove, but I’m just glad you didn’t have more damage in that beautiful kitchen of yours! Count yourself LUCKY!
4. January 2012 at 10:24 pm
Oh no!!!! Sorry to hear that. Thankfully you were all home and didn’t go out after you put in on self clean!!! Did the smoke air out pretty good? I hope so. I remember something got burnt in the oven and the house stunk for days!
Maybe in the near future you can get a second hand oven, if you wanted to get another one by then.
4. January 2012 at 10:28 pm
Oh my… those table-top roasters work really well, my neighbor gave us one a couple years ago for Christmas. I lived without a dishwasher for quite some time but finally broke down right before Thanksgiving when they had super duper sales at Home Depot. Glad everyone is ok though.
4. January 2012 at 11:03 pm
It was not a good weekend for ovens, I think. I did not set mine on fire - though now I’m afraid to run my cleaning cycle, and I always try to leave while I’m doing it because I can’t stand the smell - but after this weekend it really needs cleaned. First I baked sweet potatoes, which dripped all over the bottom of the oven even though they were wrapped in foil. They sure smelled good while they were doing it, though. Then my son and I decided to make hot wings from turkey wings - the largest hot wings you ever saw! - but the grease from baking those wings in the first place overflowed my baking sheet and started burning on the bottom of the oven and filling the house up with smoke. I know about opening windows and turning on fans even though it’s freezing outside!
Anyway, I’m glad you’re OK, and that everybody/everything but the stove survived. You could maybe live without a stove - or maybe look at Goodwill, Salvation Army, St. Vinnies and find a cheap one. One of my friends bought one for $35 several years ago, and it’s still going strong. But those roaster ovens bake pies, too. I did it once - because it was summer, and I didn’t want to heat up the whole kitchen with the real oven. It turned out really good.
I absolutely laughed out loud when I got to the part about you not getting a photo of the flames for the blog. !! Yep, I always miss those photos - don’t even think about taking them until it’s way too late.
5. January 2012 at 11:58 am
I think no picture of a stove on fire is better than a picture of a house on fire!
No stove? Really? You have a pack of people to cook for, don’t you?
5. January 2012 at 8:36 pm
Stoves are scary! Good thing you didn’t open that oven door with those flames ready to leap out at you! So, is it clean now? You can easily get along without a stove. I say try it and see how it goes before you go buy another one.
Oh, yes, you definitely missed a photo opportunity for your blog! Tsk,tsk.
5. January 2012 at 8:43 pm
You guys are absolutely hilarious!! I loved reading your comments.
Yes, we can still use the burners on the top.
YES I am so glad it didn’t set my new kitchen on fire! I would have freaked.
I can bake a pie in those little roasters?! COOL!
I cook for 6, ugh. I think we can make due with no stove, it just means no frozen pizza….
My husband scrubbed out the stove for me today. You should have seen him, he looked like a coal miner! I am too timid to test the stove tonight but I’ll see if it works tomorrow.
Thanks for your comments! LOL
20. January 2012 at 11:51 am
Wow! I’m so glad you had the presence of mind not to open the door! I’ve nearly set fire to the oven, not because of something I baked, but because of cheating. When we get pizza, I often put the boxes of leftovers in the oven overnight for next day. But then sometimes I’ve forgotten they were in there, and started to preheat the oven for the next “real” meal. I’ve certainly had smoke from that!
And we’ve also burnt up more burner covers than I can remember! Those things are great, but dangerous!
25. January 2012 at 8:43 pm
I was going through your older posts to see if you had bought a new stove. LOL I guess not, yet.