I Have Invented an Oven

I am so excited. Hydro Quebec has been warning about brown-outs during this extended winter freeze period and advising us to use as little power as possible between 4 and 8 p.m.

I wanted to bake fish with a veggie and rice in parchment in my oven, but since it is a recipe that calls for 400 degrees I decided to figure out a way to do it on the wood stove which has been running steadily since Wednesday.

After one false start I used my medium sized iron pot as the oven, popped in the packet, put on the lid and voila! a complete fish dinner in less than 20 minutes.

This may not seem revolutionary to anyone who is "mechanically ept" or to someone who learned over campfires how to bake without an oven, but for me, the least competent person I know when it comes to anything to do with the sciences, it was a source of great pride.

And it was a really important thing to have learned because now, if the power fails again, I will be able to do far more cooking on the wood stove. I could even bake bread or a cake

And this method is much cleaner than any other so I could avoid having to wash the most difficult of the prep items at a time when I have to ration water.

Yesterday I worked on a tea cozy all day, and organized my escape. I have been a prisoner of the cold since Tuesday night with a car that won't start blocking a road that cannot be plowed. Tomorrow I will call CAA to start the car and while I am running errands, charging up my battery and filling my gas tank to avoid any empty spaces for condensation, Leonard will find another tractor and plow my road. His has a slow leak and is frozen solid like my car.

One of the places I will be going is to the pharmacy to find a remedy for the ulcer-like symptoms I am experiencing as side effects of the Prednisone. The pain is almost constant and every two hours I put something into my stomach to sop up the acid. (And of course I am likely stimulating the production of hydrochloric acid by so doing.)

By the time I am off this drug I will be enormous and will have have a pickled and perforated digestive system. A glass of wine or two would allow me to forget my misery but unfortunately wine is one of the the things that causes pain.