Skewered by the Rotisserie

Originally published Dec 06 in Rant and Rave


A few weeks ago I bought a countertop oven because my stove in the new place doesn't work. I use the oven a lot in rebatching soap, melting candles and baking my clay creations so I went ahead and bought the top of the line model. I had thawed a nice fat hen last night and decided today would be the day I finally pulled out my shiny new oven. I have been drooling over a rotisserie chicken since I bought the thing. I hadn't eaten all day because I was planning on making a meal of it and have been too busy to stop until about an hour ago.

Sadly the book gave only minimal instruction and grainy little illustrations that showed almost nothing. Even the cheapo $20 model had lots more recipes and the $50 oven had complete conversion charts and estimated cooking times for their convection and rotisserie funtions plus lots of recipes. Oh, but this one had two racks, could hold two pizzas (for one?) plus convection and rotisserie features. Eighty dollars for this beast and the stinking directions said to preheat the oven then turn it off and put the rotisserie in with a fancy holder. (There were plenty of illustrations of this useless piece of equipment.) I did as instructed but they failed to mention the spit had to go in a certain way and that, with no light in this black behemoth, you cannot see this, or figure it out, until you have pulled, tugged and burned the top of your hand several times then finally lit a match and explored the inner workings like a spelunking expedition in the bowels of Hell.

By now I had sent the chicken skittering across the countertop where it bounced a few times before landing in the sink. By the way, the chicken had to have the legs and wings tied down. Of course, the ball of twine I spotted on the chef's rack every day for 2 months had now moved to a new home and failed to leave a forwarding address. I became creative and used some floral wire to truss up the bird. It was a very nice job, if I do say so. The sailing junket caused all of that work to come undone.

I had had enough. Wet, greasy, slippery hands trying to twist that wire and hold onto the slippery bird was a cardio workout. Enough! Not going through that again. Julia Child I ain't. So I tossed the rack into the oven and the chicken behind it and am now waiting for it to bake. There will be no rotisserie chicken tonight, mighty Linda has struck out.

I will be writing a scathing little note to the manufacturer in the morning but right now it is almost 1230am and I am tired and need to lay down or at least cool down. I set it to "timer cooking" for 90 minutes so if I fall asleep I can get up and nuke it, which I should have done in the first place. Tomorrow I will go back to cooking in the microwave. In the future the oven will be used properly - - for making batches of soap and tea light candles.

Nite Nite
Linda B:)