Tag Archives: House and Garden

Hey, Maytag!

Hey, Maytag!

I don’t think anyone from Maytag is checking up on things here, but I know a lot of customers and potential customers are. So, everyone, here’s some Maytag dishwasher updates:

My mom’s Maytag, about five years old, bit the dust. So did my friend Gayle’s. Forgot how old her was, but not old enough to die like that. Mine? Well, besides the same old crap, the piece that runs along the back and over the top rack won’t stay put, because the ingenious clip that’s supposed to hold it won’t stay clipped. We’re hoping duct tape will hold for a while and not mess up the dishes too much. The bottom half of the upper wash arm broke off. The plastic clips got brittle and broke. We ordered the replacement part, but this won’t be going on too long. You’d think that the plastic they used for moving parts inside a dishwasher would be a kind that stood up to heat and movement, but I guess Maytag didn’t. We’re just keeping it going until we can afford to replace it.

Baking, Baking, Baking. . .

Baking, Baking, Baking. . .

I won’t go into details, but I can’t really leave the house today. Tomorrow was going to be a baking day, because we have a band concert and a marching band event coming up this week that I promised baked goods for (yes, I know that was bad sentence construction. . .). Well, since I’m going to have to put off ’til tomorrow what I can’t do today, I’m baking.

I’m almost done with the white chocolate chip macadamia cookies, and the regular chocolate chip cookies will follow. I was going to just bring those to both functions, but then it occurred to me. . .Saturday is a Saint Patrick’s Day dinner, and I have a killer Irish Soda Bread recipe!

I’ll have to make it either later tonight, or tomorrow depending on whether I can leave the house later, because two double batches of cookies have put a serious dent in my supply of flour, butter, and sugar. It’s OK, though. I can also pick up aluminum pans and bake several soda breads at once. Both cookies and breads freeze well, which is a good thing since I won’t be able to do anything Thursday, Friday, or Saturday morning.

Now, I just want to squeeze this one little thing in. . .I love baking in an electric oven. I never thought I’d feel that way, but after all the years of throwing burned things away when I had gas ovens, it’s wonderful to know that there’ll be almost no difference between the stuff baked on the top rack and the stuff baked on the bottom one. I think I’d still rather have a gas stove, but only for cooking, not cleaning. I have one of those ceramic cooktops, and I had to get all new pots and pans that would work with it. It’s more consistent than an electric coil, but it takes a long time to cool down. Ah, but cleaning it. . .whenever I get irritated about it being electric, I just try to remember having to disassemble a gas stove to clean it, and the hours it took to get all the gunk out because I was the first one to think about what might be under there. . .

You know what else I love? Cookie scoops. I have five or six different sizes, and I use them for cookies, muffins, cupcakes, even ravioli and samosa fillings. And my KitchenAid stand mixer, I’ve loved that for years, even when I have to hammer the hinge pin back in. And commercial bakeware that doesn’t have that stupid nonstick surface that sticks to the food but not the metal. Yeah, I need more of that stuff.

Bad Design!

Bad Design!

I haven’t felt much like blogging lately, at least not in the way that would let me compose a thoughtful or thought-provoking post. I’ll get it back in time, I’m sure. However, I was just inspired by a post over at IKEAFans about putting in a corner sink.

A corner sink is a bad idea. I’m speaking with the voice of experience. In our last house, the kitchen sink was in the corner. Seems like a good way to put an otherwise unused space to work, right? Well, there’s a geometry issue. In the small kitchen, using normal depth cabinets and counters, the corner sink doesn’t put this space to work, it just makes it harder to reach. When I wanted to clean the counter and wall behind this sink, I had to clear everything off the entire counter because I had to lie down on it and snake my way under the cabinets to reach. Inconvenient barely scratches the surface when describing this. In addition, in order for the door on the cabinet over the sink to be reachable, it had to be a deep cabinet. Again, geometry became an enemy, because the door to this deep, wide cabinet was about five inches wide.

This house, for all its flaws, is nowhere near as bad as that one, but the previous owners did a lot of work to make it pretty, and that’s where the problem lies. They moved and don’t have to deal with living with this stuff, but some of you might be considering remodeling or fixing up, and I feel compelled to tell you that it’s not all about pretty. So here are some things to consider that might make your life easier. Read the rest of this entry