Ann's Blog
Grenada:
December 14–23, 2009
The Saga of My Stove
Receta’s stove always gets a workout – but never more so than during the holiday season. It’s not Hanukkah without latkes – two hors-d’oeuvre-sized types for a little gathering on Receta this year: ones made with “Irish potatoes” (as white potatoes are called here) and topped with sour cream and pepper-hot tamarind chutney (homemade by an East Indian woman in the Port of Spain market); and ones made with West Indian sweet potatoes, topped with caramelized onions and a crumble of blue cheese. And it’s not a Caribbean Christmas without ginger beer (my recipe is in The Spice Necklace), sorrel, and ponche de crème (the rich, creamy, seriously alcoholic Trinidadian eggnog). Then there are the requisite Christmas cookies – and the pizza. Our Grenadian fishermen friends Dwight and Stevie had suggested they bring us some lambi (conch) and lobster, which I would turn into pizzas (among their favourite foods) for a pre-Christmas party on Receta with them and our friends on Arctic Tern and Tusen Takk II.
But in the middle of cooking dinner last week, one of the burners of my stove began misbehaving, behavior that quickly deteriorated to flames shooting out under the burner. Not a good thing, not a good thing at all.
Even non-mechanical me had no trouble diagnosing the problem: The end of the Venturi tube had disintegrated into a heap of rust and was no longer connected to the burner. And it was clear the tubes connecting the other burners were destined for the same fate in the very near future. The stove, a Seaward Hillerange, was original to the boat – meaning it was almost 30 years old – a good long life for any appliance, let alone one that does its work in a saltwater environment. The company representative (the stove was older than she was) was sympathetic when we called to enquire about replacement parts, but no luck: It had been years since parts were manufactured for our model of stove. In fact, another rep told us, “We didn’t think any of those stoves were still in existence.”
Clearly, it was time for a replacement and, amazingly – unbelievably – the stove we wanted (meaning, the new Seaward model of our old range, not least because it would fit the same space in our galley without requiring extensive carpentry) was in stock at Island Water World in St. George’s. Otherwise, we would have faced a six- to eight-week wait for one to arrive in a container on a ship from St. Martin.
But when you’re living at anchor, getting a new stove isn’t as simple as plunking down your credit card and waiting for the truck to arrive. After coffee on the morning of D (delivery) day, Old Faithful was disconnected, Receta’s dodger was folded down and out of the way, her cockpit steps were removed, and Chuck on Tusen Takk II (who had offered his larger dinghy for transport) arrived to help. With Chuck positioned on the side deck and me stationed by a winch on the mast, Steve clipped a halyard onto the ropes he’d slung around the stove. I started cranking, and the stove rose from the depths of the main cabin, guided by Steve below and Chuck above. As it exited the companionway, there wasn’t more than a couple inches to spare on each side. Chuck moved to the dinghy, Steve took his position stoveside, and the two of them guided the beast over the lifelines and into the dinghy while I slowly – “SLOWLY, NO JERKING” – let off tension and lowered the stove. Off they headed to Clarkes Court Bay Marina, where our new purchase awaited. About an hour later, they returned with a pristine new stove, and the process was reversed.
Steve guiding the beast, and Chuck ready to receive
But what was I thinking? That we could hoist an old stove out and a new stove in and I’d be cooking? Of course, that wasn’t the case. Of course, the propane hookups had changed in the almost 30 years between old stove and new – a fact that was not evident until Steve attempted to make the connection. So two visits from a local propane fitter were required – one to assess what connectors and hoses were required and another with the correct bits to do the hookup. We had salad for dinner the first stoveless night, were invited to Tusen Takk II the second, and were delivered a thermos of coffee by Devi and Hunter on Arctic Tern at dawn on the day in between to keep me functioning and my grumbling to a minimum.
It was a full three days before the new stove was completely in place and ready for action (it turned out the new model was actually ¼ inch wider than the old one, which was ¼ inch more space than Receta’s galley had available, so some minor carpentry was in fact required). Dinner that night revealed that it was a rocket compared to its elderly forerunner. A couple days later, my ponche de crème turned out beautifully: rich and smooth as silk, not to mention potent. (“I can’t help you, honey,” Miss Pat said when I called to say hello and ask her how she makes ponche de crème. “I don’t like it, so I don’t make it.” A whole lot of other Trinis do, however, so it wasn’t hard to find a bunch of recipes that agreed on the essentials. The key ingredient is Vat 19 – an inexpensive, amber-colored Trinidadian rum. The traditional version involves just beating all the ingredients together – but because of concerns about raw eggs, I chose to ignore Steve’s advice – “All that rum will surely take care of any bacteria” – and sided with the recipes that “cook” the eggs and milk briefly in a double boiler.)
I was a happy sailor – until I tried to bake a batch of cookies.
The oven wouldn’t light. Steve left a voicemail message for the company’s technical services department. The message was not returned. The next day, I left a message, explaining rather forcefully – Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned – that Christmas was just around the corner and how could I be expected to do my Christmas baking without an oven? A rep called back promptly and talked us through the troubleshooting.
Two nights later, Receta’s cockpit was crowded. Earlier that afternoon, Dwight and Stevie had dropped off smallish lobsters on their way to shore (“dis size the sweetest”), with a bag of lambi to follow as soon as Dwight had “ponged it” to tenderize it. Steve and I scalded the lobsters and winkled every last bit of meat (as sweet as promised) out of the shells, and when the lambi arrived, I chopped, seasoned, and “pressured” them (as islanders say when something is prepared in the pressure cooker). Barb on Tusen Takk II made dough for two pizzas, and I made dough for two more. I brushed the the first two pizzas with garlic butter and topped them with lobster, a bit of onion and tomato, and a blizzard of mozzarella (see The Spice Necklace for the recipe); and the next two with lambi in tomato sauce and an equal amount of cheese. Barb offered up her oven, and one of the pizzas was ferried over to Tusen Takk for baking. But Receta’s new stove rose to the challenge and did the other three pizzas in rapid succession. Every last slice disappeared.
at 60 feet, but the candles defeated him
Sign up to be notified by email when I post a new blog