The Torture of the Self-cleaning Oven

I opened the oven the other night and of course, smoke billowed out of it, and Gary began yelling.

"Gary, calm down. That's not the food burning, it's the stuff that dripped on to the oven floor the last time we cooked something."

"Well can't you clean that up?"

"I would if I were ever permitted to use the self-cleaning oven. I can't use it if you're in the house, and you're always home now that you're retired. Plus, it has to be spring because I need all the windows open so you can't smell even a hint of the noxious fumes. You say they poison you."

(The fumes, I admit, are noxious, and I don't know why: all the oven does is heat up to 750 degrees and incinerate all the organic material. Somehow, though, it smells like chemicals. I don't mind smelling the odor, but Gary is convinced it is going to send him into respiratory arrest.)

This time though, he shut himself in his room and "allowed" me to clean the oven. After the three-hour cremation of five years of pie fillings and pizza crumbs, I opened all the windows and doors and ran all the fans. Finally, I went in to tell him the coast was clear.

It was hard to open the door to his room because he had jammed towels under it. I’m surprised he wasn’t wearing a gas mask.

Comments

[KC]

Lots of things go through "interesting" chemical decomposition stages when being incinerated; fats and oils prominently so. (food-safe? yes! food-safe when brought past the smoke point? nooope) So there's that. I used to be pretty rigorous about putting a cookie sheet underneath things to catch drips, but that was a habit developed after having had to clean however-many no-self-cleaning-feature ovens at the time of apartment move-out over the years. Having to scrub off burnt-on lasagna residue while trying to not choke on the spray-oven-cleaner fumes can be very motivational!

[TheQueen]

KC - I have consistently had a cookie sheet under everything for months, but then one underdone pie and Gary was convinced it was impeding the heat.

[KC]

If you put it one rack below the pie instead of directly under the pie, it impedes the heat substantially less (minimally, really). Directly underneath I do grant that it impedes the heat from the bottom (in fact, I've used doubled-up cookie sheets as a trick to stop biscuits from burning on the bottom before the tops were done at all, in a particularly poorly insulated gas oven in one ancient apartment)(the mice had stolen the insulation over the 50+ years of service of the oven, so the oven didn't hold heat well - it mostly just blasted it from below). In a normal oven, you can account for a single cookie sheet's worth of insulation with heat settings (a little higher) and rack placement in the oven (a little lower) and covering the edge of the crust with foil, if it browns prematurely.

But anyway, it is now clear: this is All Gary's Fault. ;-)

[theQueen]

KC- Just this morning I purchased a special device that seems to elevate your pie and let the heat through and catch the drips.

[theQueen]

I have been buying waaaay too much stuff lately.