Kitchen Idiot

Remember a while back when we renovated our Kitchen?  One of my favorite things was my new oven.  It’s an Atag and we payed a somewhat ridiculous amount extra so that we could have one that opens sideways rather than downwards.  I’m short and in order to have our oven above the fridge it was essential that I would be able to reach inside.  Yes, that is our itty bitty euro fridge beneath the oven, but that’s an entirely different story.

Who needs Vanna White when you have Xander ‘Showman Hands’ Soldaat in the house.

Anyhow, the kitchen renovation took place back in 2007 and one thing has been bothering me the entire time.  The oven was crooked!  Whenever I would try to bake a cake, the back side would be higher.  When I’d make something with sauce, one side would have loads while the other side dried out… it made me crazy!  I spoke to the people who installed it and they insisted it was installed properly.  Yet one lopsided meal after another, I was convinced that they had done something wrong and were lying to me.  Those bastards.

This morning I am making my very first baked cheesecake.  A delicious looking Turtle Cheesecake that makes me drool just looking at it.  It’s my friend Penny’s birthday this weekend and she is having some close friends and family over for a Fuck The Diet Let’s Eat Cake party!  Ok I think she may have worded it a bit differently but that’s what I got out of it.  We are having a no Weight Watchers, eat some sweets and don’t feel guilty evening, which I thought was a good opportunity to try to make my first cheesecake.

Getting back to the kitchen… I was worried that because of my lopsided oven, that I’d end up with a lopsided cheesecake and I was growing frustrated before I even started making it.   Xander got out his level and checked the wire shelves, and sure enough they were tilted down towards the back.  I knew it!  Those sneaky bastards ruined my kitchen and got away with it!  I was already planning the phone call in my head…

In the meantime, I was thinking on how I could remedy this so I could get my cheesecake made today, perhaps putting some tinfoil in the back to rest the back edge of the pan on when it hit me…

What happens if we put the shelf in the other way around, upside down?

We took the shelf out and turned it over and I thought OH hey, look!  That little rail on the edge would be handy to stop stuff from slipping off!

Xander slid the shelf in upside down and as he was doing so he mentioned that the tilt of the rail going in seemed to work better than it did before.  There was a curve in the metal that appeared to make it less easy to pull the shelf all the way out.

Then out came the level.

He exclaimed, “HEY!  Whattaya know!  It’s perfectly level!”

After I picked my jaw up off the floor I swore a little, laughed a little and then smacked my forehead in disbelief.

Yes, that’s right.  The last three years of torment and all those lopsided, uneven and tilted meals were my own doing, because I put the shelves in upside down… and it took me THREE FREAKIN’ YEARS to figure it out. THREE YEARS!

I’ve always said that I’m no whiz in the kitchen, and was disappointed when I realized the kitchen didn’t come complete with cooking skills after managing to ruin cookies that didn’t even require baking… but this literally TAKES THE CAKE.  Sometimes even I am amazed by my own stupidity.

Now, I am off to make a cheesecake, which is something that excites and frightens me at the same time.  There are any number of things I can possibly do to ruin it… over cooking, under cooking, forgetting ingredients, not using that weird pan properly or maybe even dropping it… but at least I know it won’t be lopsided!