Disaster in Dough God's Kitchen

[Joe Valencic]

After 16 years, the Dough God's range went berserk for Mama last night. She preheated the oven to 350 F, mixed up a batch of her chocolate chip cookies to fill the cookie jar, popped the first pan in the over and set the timer for 9 minutes. She sat in her chair to watch a show on TV, and very shortly I started to smell something burning. The smoke detector went off and we both hit the oven at the same time to see the cookies smoking from the oven door. Open doors and windows to evacuate the smoke, and I looked at the auxiliary thermometer that I have hanging in the oven, and it registered a whopping 550 F. The digital readout on the control panel still said 350 F, but something crapped out in the oven and forgot to pay attention to the setting. Mama was not a happy camper.

Well, the loving couple went shopping for a new gas range tonight, and after 4 stores there was nothing Mama saw that she liked (she doesn't want stainless steel). We're headed to a big appliance store tomorrow, and hopefully she'll find something she likes that we can take home in the truck. I sure hope so, because I have some Focaccia and Ciabatta breads to make for an event on Sunday evening, plus, we're out of sandwich bread and I surely don't want to buy bread from the store, after being spoiled with all this homemade bread.

Joe