This past year, I've found myself alone for all but one of the major holidays. David was travelling to meet research and other academic obligations. Being alone hadn't so bad. It freed me from obligation. I did not have to rise to or suffer those social conventions that I find forced, insincere, or intolerable. If I wished, I could observe without interacting. I could justify my being as ethnography, even if that was just an excuse. Truth is, I'd have made a fine monk. Best of all, I ate what I wanted to, without regard for tradition. I exiled myself from a nation of reheated store-bought hot cross buns.
David's travels gave me the freedom to allow the forbidden foods to be carried over our threshold. Amongst them: lamb, goat cheese, eggplant and zucchinni — the latter, locally going by their French names, aubergine and courgette. These were the cardinals and bishops of an outlawed church. Eating them, a heresy. Worse still, as I would come to learn, baking them in the same oven that cooked our family food was a sin against David's law of kosher cooking. The forbidden foods had defiled the oven, the food that came afterward into the oven, and those who ate these foods thereafter.
The oven demanded ritual cleaning. I could tell because, though David never cooks, oven cleaning products began accumulating on the kitchen counter. These weren't just any oven cleaning products, they were American oven cleaning products. Where he got them, I don't know. European environmental law requires that products normally found in the United Kingdom will not be detrimental to the environment. That's not to say that American products do damage the environment. But, it would be fair to say that American products kick ass, while European products are more Everyman than superhero. In a world of oven cleaners, America has Captain America, while the Captain of team England can be sent off with a red card.
Let the cleaning woman do it, he suggested. Now, David's idea of a clean oven is of an oven returned to an as-new state. It would take hours, not counting the wait-time between the application of an oven cleaning product and the actual cleaning. His faith in chemicals is unshakable; but, as a geo-chemist, that is as it must be. Still, even the chemicals in the average American over-the-counter oven cleaner would only deal with soft stuff. In any case, the cleaning woman didn't have additional hours to give to oven cleaning. Besides, if we wanted to retain her services, we would never require her to clean the oven. With that explanation, I hung my head low. I did the crime, I said, I'll do the time.
Let's be honest here. How often does anyone clean their oven? Not often, offered the cleaning woman. I clean mine, she continued, only when what I've cooked starts to taste like something else. That, in my experience could be quite a while. The average person would be more likely to move house and have to clean the oven for that purpose long before a "dirty" oven would confound the tastes coming out of it. Let me put this another way, anything in a dirty oven that could kill you has already been burnt to hell. That's what makes cleaning an oven such a chore. What's there is baked on. We're talking the geology of carbon rather than the biology of carbon-based life, ... diamonds not the creature from the Black Lagoon.
Frankly, I'm more fearful that not only will chemical cleaning of the oven eat my lungs — yes, in a well ventilated room ... thank God, the kitchen has windows, but that the chemical residue left in the oven after cleaning may be carcinogenic. Sure, I know that these are well tested products, that there are as many folks dying from cleaning their ovens as there are folks cleaning their ovens, but I still worry. For that reason, I avoid using the American oven cleaning products that David has collected. Instead, I resort to methods that my cleaning woman says her mother uses. They're the same methods my depression-era, war-baby mother used. Thick rubber gloves. Piping hot salted water and vinegar. And, a soft scrub pad, backed up by metal wool. The latter is probably like cotton candy — what the British call candy floss — amidst carbon-based lifeforms. The scent of vinegar draws my mind to fish-and-chips. Of course, this method means that cleaning the oven stretches from hours to days. Well, it certainly feels like days.
The amazing thing is not that I've cleaned the oven, not that I've rejected the chemical world, but David's reaction when he arrives home from a day at the lab. He's checked the rubbish bin. He's found the cans of American oven cleaner that I've simply thrown away. And, he's decreed Good job! I feel like the fearless Lion standing beside the Tin Man before the Wizard of Oz. I've been ordained knight of the kitchen counter. I'm sure that he's thinking that I'm thinking Hey, I might just do this again sometime. Being lauded feels so, ... so wonderful! I'm actually thinking, Arise, Sir Oven Cleaner! and taking stock of the knives. He hasn't bothered to open the oven door.
I can tell what the dog is thinking. There will be no roast tonight!
The oven demanded ritual cleaning. I could tell because, though David never cooks, oven cleaning products began accumulating on the kitchen counter. These weren't just any oven cleaning products, they were American oven cleaning products. Where he got them, I don't know. European environmental law requires that products normally found in the United Kingdom will not be detrimental to the environment. That's not to say that American products do damage the environment. But, it would be fair to say that American products kick ass, while European products are more Everyman than superhero. In a world of oven cleaners, America has Captain America, while the Captain of team England can be sent off with a red card.
Let the cleaning woman do it, he suggested. Now, David's idea of a clean oven is of an oven returned to an as-new state. It would take hours, not counting the wait-time between the application of an oven cleaning product and the actual cleaning. His faith in chemicals is unshakable; but, as a geo-chemist, that is as it must be. Still, even the chemicals in the average American over-the-counter oven cleaner would only deal with soft stuff. In any case, the cleaning woman didn't have additional hours to give to oven cleaning. Besides, if we wanted to retain her services, we would never require her to clean the oven. With that explanation, I hung my head low. I did the crime, I said, I'll do the time.
Frankly, I'm more fearful that not only will chemical cleaning of the oven eat my lungs — yes, in a well ventilated room ... thank God, the kitchen has windows, but that the chemical residue left in the oven after cleaning may be carcinogenic. Sure, I know that these are well tested products, that there are as many folks dying from cleaning their ovens as there are folks cleaning their ovens, but I still worry. For that reason, I avoid using the American oven cleaning products that David has collected. Instead, I resort to methods that my cleaning woman says her mother uses. They're the same methods my depression-era, war-baby mother used. Thick rubber gloves. Piping hot salted water and vinegar. And, a soft scrub pad, backed up by metal wool. The latter is probably like cotton candy — what the British call candy floss — amidst carbon-based lifeforms. The scent of vinegar draws my mind to fish-and-chips. Of course, this method means that cleaning the oven stretches from hours to days. Well, it certainly feels like days.
The amazing thing is not that I've cleaned the oven, not that I've rejected the chemical world, but David's reaction when he arrives home from a day at the lab. He's checked the rubbish bin. He's found the cans of American oven cleaner that I've simply thrown away. And, he's decreed Good job! I feel like the fearless Lion standing beside the Tin Man before the Wizard of Oz. I've been ordained knight of the kitchen counter. I'm sure that he's thinking that I'm thinking Hey, I might just do this again sometime. Being lauded feels so, ... so wonderful! I'm actually thinking, Arise, Sir Oven Cleaner! and taking stock of the knives. He hasn't bothered to open the oven door.
I can tell what the dog is thinking. There will be no roast tonight!
No comments:
Post a Comment