I’m going to answer that. Yes, we are idiots. It’s official. And now my landlord probably knows it because I WhatsApp’d him about our stove top drama – requesting a tutorial at his earliest convenience. His answer ‘OK’. Its not ‘Fine’ but it might as well be.
We haven’t been able to cook. We can use the oven – but that took two of us and a lot of pressing, pulling and what not. It shouldn’t be this hard to cook a pizza, but alas. It was. And it came with a great deal of arguing.
‘Stop pressing that! I just pressed it and the light came on. You pressed it and the light went off!’
‘Does the light have to be on?’
‘I don’t know, but light seems better than no light.’
Eventually, I just pressed a bunch of buttons, turned knobs and the oven started getting hot. Do we understand Celsius v. Fahrenheit? No. But we know 100 Celsius is boiling so we backed into a temperature that seemed right to cook a pizza. That was 4 days ago. Since then, we’ve eaten out, or had crackers and water.
We couldn’t get the range hood to work either. We had to be doing something wrong.
Jeff just came into the room where I’m reading.
‘Induction.’ He announced.
‘What?’ I was confused – We don’t have those in the US – not that I’ve heard of.
‘Induction. That stove top uses induction to generate heat.’ And then he pulled me off the bed to come with him into the kitchen.
‘How do you know that and why do I care?’ I asked.
‘Look.’ And he pointed to the cook top. Sure enough, right there is said ‘Induction‘ on the burners.
‘So?’ It meant nothing to me.
‘Induction cook tops use magnets to heat the pan. These people had childproofed the world in here. It’s an induction cook top.’
‘Huh?’ I’m not going to say I wasn’t impressed. ‘Get the pan I brought and let’s see.’ I had brought a copper pan to heat my milk for my coffee in the morning. I haven’t been able to use that little pan and it’s made me cranky.
We put water in the pan and again, we fought over button pushing and lights and numbers flashing. The pan didn’t heat. I needed to deflect. Jeff had taken out a pair of his precious, hard-to-buy-size shoes from one of the suit cases, so I could pack my copper milk pot. I started pushing button on the range hood and the light and fan went on. Mystery solved there. Guess the stove top power controlled those.
‘I think you’re wrong about it.’
‘I think I’m right. The copper pan isn’t magnetic.’ Then he went to look it up to prove he was right, and damn it! He was.
‘We need to get these ‘Induction Hobs’ for your copper pot. That’s the only way it will work.’
‘Seriously? I can’t find a yoga mat in Valencia. I’m going to find an ‘Induction Hob’?’
‘I know where to get one. I bet ‘The Worten’ has one. They sell induction cook tops.’
So where are we walking a mile to, right now in the dark? Yes, The Worten. We live at the Worten. It’s like when we used to live at The Home Depot back in the US. We’d make 3 trips a day on the weekends for some home project or another. We’ve already given these ‘Worten‘ people over 3000 euros and I can’t go anywhere because they’re always gong to deliver something. And now I’m going to give them more money for Induction Hobs. Dear Lord.
But we will go and we will buy these things. And tomorrow night we will eat lasagna with sauce I will start in the morning and cook all day. I have all the spices for it. I’ll just have to make one of my many trips to the Mercadona and El Chino tomorrow. But these Idiots are going to eat homemade pasta with garlic bread and a ceasar salad for dinner tomorrow night. Now I just gotta get Jeff to call the crane operator to arrange to have my couch brought through the window of a 6th floor apartment. Baby steps.
Viva Espana 