Still too Chicken for Haircuts...

But, I am attempting to cook a meal in our oven. We arrived in our flat six months ago to an oven caked with at least an inch of black rock-like buildup. There were no racks in it. There is no temperature gage, although, thankfully we received a nice portable oven thermometer courtesy of Grandma Lillian. The build-up, well that took a few weeks, then a few months, and finally after some legal chemical foam soaking & a metal paint scraper & millions of pairs of disposable gloves...I had an oven. Try to translate oven rack in Czech. I dare you. Several visits to busy hardware stores with impatient counter people & I was humbled. We bought a baking sheet, bent the sides with pliers & viola...oven rack. I thawed some squishy french fries as my first experiment, and faithfully recorded the oven temperature every 10 minutes on each setting. I'm really glad I used cheap frozen fries that we didn't really want to eat anyway. Since then I've been able to drag out the details of cooking on old Czech stoves from a couple of natives. Turn it up all the way, put the dish in, and when it's hot turn it off, but keep the dish in to finish cooking. HA The next time I baked I almost created a nuclear incident. Last week I successfully baked an egg, potato, & leek casserole AND a rather dense and dry cake like thing. Tonight I'm attempting lasagna casserole, wish me luck, the thermometer hasn't read over 300 degrees Fahrenheit for over an hour. On a related lasagna note, Thomas loves Garfield the movie. Loves it. Sings the theme song, Holla by the baha men, in his spare moments. "Hey, ho, heeeeaaaayyyy, Hey, ho heeeeaaay..."