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Thursday, 17 May 2012

Ode to my Oven

I will never even take an oven for granted again.

When we bought Orion she came with an oven but not until I went to use it did I spot the mercury at the bottom of the stove. Upon further investigation we realised we needed a certain part that would cost almost as much as the oven to buy and ship over. From that day on in Grenada, Dylan promised me that when we got to St Martin, I would have a fully functioning oven. So I out my recipes to the back of the shelf and made do with the stove top until then.

The chandleries in St Martin had loads of oven to choose from and I decided on one of the cheapest at just over $1000 but it was a lot smaller than the one we currently had. Before we went ahead and bought it, we did one final plea on the cruiser's net for anyone getting rid of a working oven. Lucky for us, a guy was getting rid of exactly the same oven and model as ours that he no longer wanted....and it still worked! It was ours for $100. Back on Orion we went about choosing the best parts from each oven and ended up with a super duper version. Igniting the burner and watching the pilot light get bigger, we crossed our fingers hoping this $100 was worth the amount of effort. It worked first time!

So now I had a working oven and tons of recipes to choose from. Gem had given us a recipe book when we started out on this adventure that has great words in it about companionship and the origin of the word 'company'. It is derived from the work 'com pani' which means 'with bread'. With this in mind, it only seemed right that I attempted a loaf of bread to start with. I set about measuring the ingredients, kneading the dough, waiting for it to rise and 5 hours later we were rewarded with an amazing loaf that tastes as good as it looks. Since then I have made cakes, baked chicken and potato bakes.



Today's request is apple crumble – hopefully with this new oven I can fatten Dylan up a little! (Dylan's comment – there is nothing like a diet called 'poverty' to help shed some pounds!)

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