FOOD FRIDAY: Microwave rebellion
Indignity Vol. 4, No. 206
FOOD FRIDAY DEP'T.
When Is an Off Button Not an Off Button?
I WAS COOKING dinner the other Saturday night, a fairly frantic dinner, with the oven and the stovetop both going at once. I think I was baking sweet potatoes while making one of those pastas that you finish by stirring the noodles into the pan with the sauce and butter while they absorb some extra pasta water? It's a blur. What I remember is that it was sweltering in the kitchen, and I finished the last thing I was making and slung the finished food from the wok into the serving dish, and then I hit the membrane button on the microwave to shut off the roaring of the vent fan.
The fan kept roaring. OK, stupid me, I must have had it on "Low," so I thought I was double-tapping the button from High to Low to Off, when I was really cycling from Low to Off to High. I double-tapped it again. The roaring continued. Right, sure, I must have actually triple-tapped it the first time, or maybe the second, some dumb glitch in the execution of basic muscle memory. I was sweating and a little dazed, stumbling for no good reason in the last inch before the finish line of dinnertime. I tried again. Tap-tap. Roarrrrrrrrr.
Hang on, OK, what? Now I focused my eyes on the little LED screen to read the fleeting fan-speed messages. Tap: HIGH. Roarrrr. Tap: LOW. Roarrr. Tap: OFF.
Roarrrrrrr.
The fan control was on OFF and the fan was running. One of the most mundane machines in the house had broken free from human control. I hauled out the folding stepstool and went into the little cabinet above the microwave and yanked the plug out of the wall. The LEDs went dark and the fan stopped. I plugged it in again, and the fan immediately came on. I unplugged it and ate, preoccupied with thoughts of how much it costs to get an appliance repair person to even show up for a diagnostic visit.
After dinner, I plugged the microwave in once more, and the fan still came on. I turned to Google, and the autofill immediately confirmed that "frigidaire microwave fan turns on by itself" / "frigidaire microwave fan not turning off" / "frigidaire microwave fan came on by itself" was a thing that had entered the collective consciousness of the internet. The actual results of the searching were the usual ever-more-degraded Google mess, but what I gleaned was that the microwave was supposed to have a self-cooling function that overrides whatever fan settings the human might try to use. Google did retrieve an instructional video about how to fix the problem. It told me to unplug the microwave and let it cool down. Someone, somewhere, collected a fraction of a penny in monetization.
All of that sounded fine but I'd been cooking in that kitchen for a few years now, creating conditions even more sweltering than I'd created this time around, and the microwave had never felt the need to override my orders before. An automatic fan cycle for overheating meant there had to be a thermostat, and presumably the thermostat firing when it hadn't fired before meant that the thermostat was failing.
Was I really going to need to spring for a repair for a feature I hadn't even known the microwave had? Why wasn't the fan control just a fan control? Who runs their microwave so hot that it has to keep cooling itself down? Wouldn't whoever did run their microwave that way really need that safety feature, though, and wasn't it petty of me to be annoyed at the technology that would prevent that hypothetical person from burning their house down?
I left the microwave unplugged. We had dinner reservations out the next night anyway.
Monday morning, I woke up and I thought about using the timer on my phone, instead of the microwave timer, for the tea. Then I woke up some more and remembered that I pack hot leftovers in the kids' lunch thermoses every day. I shuffled to the kitchen, got the stepstool, and plugged the microwave back in. The LEDs came on; the fan stayed off. It's behaved itself ever since.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, November 21, 2024
★★★★ Reflected lights shone on the wet streets in the slow-arriving dawn. No one wanted to wake up. It had rained, real soporific overnight rain, and the morning drizzle turned back into a genuine, pattering shower. Here was a gray, rainy November day—the most depressing kind of autumn day, unless nobody has seen one all month and the parks have been erupting in brushfires. Now it was a piece of gravel worth setting in a glittering tiara. It was as quick to fade as it had been slow to lighten, the night arriving quickly and completely before there was a moment to arrange a picture of the daylit sky. More rain gurgled in the dark, against an airplane's booming roar, bouncing off the solid clouds.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast.
Tom Scocca
Click on this box to find the Indignity Morning Podcast archive.
TOM SCOCCA
VISUAL CONSCIOUSNESS DEP'T.
Dining in the round
More consciousness at Instagram.
ADVICE DEP'T.
GOT SOMETHING YOU need to justify to yourself, or to the world at large? Other columnists are here to judge you, but The Sophist is here to tell you why you’re right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich selected from Entertainment Cook Book: Recipes by Students of Central College for Women, Lexington, Missouri, compiled by Lexington Central College Club, Mo. Central College for Women, published in 1919 and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
ROLLED HAM SANDWICHES
Boil ham until tender. Put the desired amount through meat grinder. Mix with mayonnaise dressing which has been made without salt. Now take a very fresh loaf of white bread, and cut the long way. Trim off edges, spread with ham mixture, and roll. Tie with baby ribbon. —Jane Groves Wettendorf, Boonville, Mo.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
