What's in Your Oven?

I have a gorgeous mixer, but I've used it almost exclusively for bread and pizza doughs over the last few years. I've made cheesecake, but all in all I never make desserts.

This weekend, I decided I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies.

So I acquired my supplies at the store, being sure to buy the extra big bag of Tollhouse Semi-Sweet chips so I'd have a nice cache of chocolate for the rest of the week, and set to making them. I was totally psyched about this. The music was playing--old Trainspotting soundtrack--and the dough was taking shape. I thought, "I'll just bake 'em right away. Why refrigerate the dough?"

I take out the large pans that live in the oven. They are warm from the residual heat of the gas. I turn the dial to 375. The pilot light goes out.

Dammit.

There I am, not sure if what I think has happened has really happened. So I run the oven while doing dishes. Ten minutes pass. I no longer smell gas, probably because I've become so accustomed to it. I check the oven. Cold. Full of gas. You can hear it hissing.

Damn damn damn.

I have a brief vision of blowing myself up. I wonder if I have a flashlight. I do not. Suddenly it occurs to me I haven't even used a baking tray since moving into this apartment (April 2004). I find my baking tray and try to put it in the oven. It doesn't fit.

GAH!!!

The oven has yet to be relit, but I did get my cookies. I brought the dough to my sister's place on Sunday mid-day and baked while cussing at the Bears.

This morning my belly feels horribly empty and something of an existential crisis has washed over me, for I've lived almost exclusively on cookie sugar.

**

I don't recall whether it was on tv or radio this weekend, but I overheard some election pundit say, "For Americans, Iraq has become a four-letter word." Ummmm....
-cK