Running out of gas.

Silence Dogood here (again). When our friend Ben and I moved to our cottage home, Hawk’s Haven, located in the precise middle of nowhere, PA, we inherited a big old gas stove along with the house. To my ongoing amusement, it’s a Caloric stove. (No kidding.) I guess there was actually a time when “caloric” was considered a good thing!

I love gas stoves for three reasons: First, you can control the amount of heat you’re using with total precision. Second, once you turn off a burner, it’s off, unlike electric stoves with burners that cool down slowly so food can burn even when the burner’s been turned off. And third, even with an electronically-triggered gas stove like ours, if the power goes off, you can still turn on the burner, light it with a match, and keep on cooking. Let me tell you, that’s a good feeling.

However, I didn’t realize that the “gas” used by gas stoves was actually propane; I guess I thought it was natural gas, despite the tank outside the kitchen door. Fortunately, the folks who’d supplied the propane to the previous owners continued to supply it to us, and patiently explained one or two things to me along the way. They also suggested, repeatedly, that I get rid of the old behemoth and buy a modern gas stove. But I love my ancient stove, even though only three of the burners have ever worked.

Let me just say that cooking an elaborate meal on three burners can be a real challenge. Besides switching off pans with the dexterity and elan of a real chef tossing crepes or omelettes, I’ve resorted to using my slow cooker, rice cooker, and toaster oven at various times to make up for the missing burner. So you can imagine my delight when our friend Ben and I wandered into Big Lots last weekend to try to find a door mat to replace the one our puppy Shiloh had chewed up and, lo and behold, there was a countertop burner for $12. Yes! Finally, a fourth burner.

You’d have thought this might have occurred to me long ago, but Luddites that we are, familiarity with any sort of gadgetry is completely alien to us. Each new acquisition is not only a revelation, it typically requires endless agonizing in the “Do we really need this?” vein before a purchase is made. Not this time, though. I really, really needed that burner, not every day, but probably a couple of times a week, and definitely for any special occasion.

All I can say is, thank God we bought it. The very next night, I put sweet potatoes in the oven, chopped up a pan full of green beans, made a huge tossed salad (a nightly staple here), and was getting ready to make rice in our rice cooker. But first, I noticed something a little odd: The oven didn’t seem to be coming on. Turning on the burner under the green beans, I noticed the same thing: no flame, no gas smell. I tried the other two working burners: nothing. I turned on a burner and lit a match: nothing. Oh, no: Apparently we’d run completely out of propane. Whatever happened to auto-fill?!!

I guess we could have put the sweet potatoes in the toaster oven, if we’d been willing to wait a few hours to eat them, but I tossed them in the fridge instead, took the countertop burner out of its box and plugged it in, turned on the rice cooker, and put the pot of green beans on the electric burner. We had a simple supper of green beans and rice with a huge salad. It wasn’t quite the supper I’d envisioned, but fortunately OFB and I both love green beans and rice, so we were able to make do and be grateful for hot food in cold weather.

The next day, the propane people arrived and refilled our tank. Our ancient stove was back in business. But this experience had taught me a useful lesson: Just as a gas stove can be invaluable in a power outage, an electric burner can be a godsend if you run out of gas.

Do you have a backup?

              ‘Til next time,

                             Silence