A (perhaps THE) senior moment and a cooker

[grahamhobbs]

You know when the old codger needs to be shunted off to the old people's home when he keeps leaving the gas on. Well it keeps happening to me. The other night the OH went to bed and left me to finish bottling some apples. About 2 hours after her, I made it to bed and she stirred saying only 'have you turned the oven off?' - 'of course, luv' I replied, thinking to myself that I distinctly remembered doing it, although I got a twinge that perhaps I should double check because I'd left it on before - no I was certain, I was tired and needed to go to bed. I was rudely awakened a few hours later when the OH clambered over me, her sensitive nose in her sleep alerting her to something burning! I'd left a ring on the top, that had been boiling the rubber rings, still on. The air was full of burning rubber.
Now I remember turning the oven off and I remember turning the ring off - oh, I turned the oven knob clockwise and also the one for the ring - s..t, this is our new range oven (2ndhand but new to us), to turn the oven off you turn clockwise but the rings are turned anticlockwise, turning them not down and then off but UP and then off - who decide that this was sensible???? Sorry for 60 years you do it one way then someone decides it has to be done the opposite way. So I'd left the ring on very low.
I could go into a rant about modern ovens, they are completely useless despite all their fancy programs - the knobs with hundreds of options are hopeless because the heat from the oven goes straight up and burns the knobs making them unreadable, the grill is an oven just where you can't see anything, the cooker has 5 rings, impressive, but who can possibly mentally control 5 pans at one time, there is no insulation to the ovens so heat radiates out from them, etc, etc ...........
The old codger is getting too old.

[Green Aura]

Sounds like a Smeg (the cooker that is)

[Mrs Moustoir]

Oh dear. We've all done it - well, I certainly have!

Hope the whiff has gone as burnt rubber is not a pleasant smell!

[Thomzo]

Please don't blame it on age. I can remember leaving the gas ring on in my first house. I moved out when I was 22! It's been a regular habit ever since. The only way I can remind myself to switch it off is to set the timer. Even when I'm just cooking something very simple.

Zoe

[snapdragon]

Been there, done that (in my twenties) with a German cooker that worked opposite to the English ones I'd used before

don't beat yourself up about it - you'll remember next time

[Millymollymandy]

Bring back eye level gas grills! Oh I so miss them and can't even do cheese on toast any more, silly modern electric grills that are just part of the oven and you have to wait half an hour for them to heat up..... At least with my oven it is placed at waist height which is great for aging backs but I can remember with other low down ovens sitting on the floor watching something grill - how bloody silly is that?????? So you have my sympathies!

[boboff]

We use the smoke alarm to let the kids know when dinners ready!

Its not age mate, twice I have been reducing stock, and had it simmering, went out and "pottered" in the garden, get side tracked, and come back in after an hour to a pressure cooker with an ash like covering on the bottom, and no gravy!

[Stonehead]

My pet hate with cookers is the ceramic hob. All sleek, stylish and wipe-clean shininess. Bollocks!

Anything spilt on a ceramic hob immediately turns in a blistered, black, pile of gunge with stronger adhesion than superglue. Plastic or wooden implements won't scrape it off, steel implements scratch the ceramic—and often don't scrape it off. Over time, the accreted gunge forms a ring around each of the hot spots, lifting pans off the heat and screwing up the cooking. I've spent hours soaking our hob with vinegar, scrubbing it with bicarb solutions and chipping at it with steel spatulas (and once with a cold chisel). I've even painted it with caustic soda solution (removed the paint easily but not the gunge). Stupid bloody things.

I much prefer old-fashioned electric or gas cookers with steel bowls under the element/gas burner. Just line them with foil and remove the foil if anything spills. Simple and effective. (Okay, maybe not green as it uses up aluminium.) And old-fashioned enamel seems to be far easier to wipe clean that supposedly wipe-clean ceramic.

Bah, humbug.

[Millymollymandy]

Mine's white (probably enamel) and really easy to clean. Before that I've had fancy looking stainless steel which is nigh on impossible. I go for ease not looks these days.

[Jerseymum]

I do this all the time! It's not age, it's gremlins.
Sarah