Duck for Fat Albert

I shouldn't be writing. I should be accomplishing something. But today is the last day of summer for me...I start home school on Monday. So while my husband is in the next room watching Fat Albert with the kids, I'm going to do this.



This is my new oven. My new, forty plus year old oven. It is in my new house. My new, forty plus year old house. This house feels very much like home to me, since it was built in the same decade as the house I grew up in.

And this oven is the very model my mom used to cook with when she first moved into my childhood home.


Now let me tell you a little bit about me and cooking. I like to cook. I think. I can't quite remember what it's like to cook for normal people. People who are not children. And my kids aren't even picky. But they do have the normal restrictions most children would have...nothing that's too mixed up together, nothing extremely spicy, nothing that looks weird.

Not to mention the fact that cooking takes some level of concentration. Whether you're trying to follow a recipe or sort of making it up as you go along, you need to be in the groove. Be devoting your mind to the task.



Now I don't have to tell you how hard it is to do this when you have the chaos around you that I'm dealing with here. I find myself interrupted by everything from scraped knees that need bandaged to "MOM! CAN YOU WIPE ME?" to phone calls to random messes that need attention. How am I expected to cook with all this going on?


This is why pretty much everything I make lately is just okay. Edible, but not excellent. I hate it. I want my kids to remember their mom being an awesome cook. Instead, they beg me for Mac n Cheese.

I'm hoping the G.E. wall oven will turn things around for me. I love this oven.



It gets hot quickly. It doesn't make the kitchen terribly hot. It is vintage and thus stylistically cool. It must have cooked amazing things over the years. It's the same type of oven my mom made our Thanksgiving dinners in. (Until they remodeled the kitchen in the late 80's.) It is mysterious, since it has no window in the door.


And you know what else I like about it? It tells me what temperature to cook things at. Because you know me, always roasting duck. Or lamb. Or veal. I'll have to use the trusty internet to find out how long to cook these things, but at least I have the temp.

So here's to my wall oven from the '60's. May it be my culinary good luck charm. May I look like June Cleaver or Donna Reed with a small waist and fancy apron as I use it, saying to my husband "Hi Dear" and giving him a generous yet conservative peck on the cheek as I pull a double crusted pie out of the oven. May it take my "okay" meals that I put into it and magically change them into savory dishes worthy of a cool vintage wall oven.

Fat Albert's over. Thus, so is my blog. Hey Hey Hey, Julie's cooking up a feast today. Maybe even Fat Albert will love my cooking.