After an exciting evening of waiting to see how long a tomato would take to cook in our brand new " made in Egypt" oven (I suppose my landlord was being patriotic buying an oven with a large sticker Made in Egypt on it) or was it the cheapest he could find, he is not the first landlord who has tried to give me a cheap cooker at least it was better looking than the last one and I managed to do some cooking on the rings.
even though I had to take the back cover off because it kept falling down and needed a pan or something heavy to prop it in an upright position, the reason Pam ( my wife) decided to cook a tomato was I made a fish tagine after frying the onions and tomatoes on the top rings preparing the herbs and all the ingredients ready for the fish tagine I put it in my favorite cooking earthenware pot ( because it keeps all the flavors in the fish)
I put it in the oven normally it would take 20 minutes to bake. With mouth watering I put my oven gloves on to get said dish from the oven , first glance at the dish told me it was not cooked so I left it in the oven silly oll me had put the gas on its lowest ( no telling no gas marks) so I moved the knob, hoping that another 15 minutes it will be done. I hour later I was still waiting. then, without needing oven gloves on I put it in the good old back up oven... the microwave. I was in no mood yesterday to test the oven so Pam decided to try it with a tomato. ( wifely common sense) it did cook quite nicely as tomatoes do in a very slow oven, in fact 2 hours slow cooking.
Mr mechanic got up this morning ready to politely return my new superb feat of Egyptian engineering to my landlord, first I must strip it down to see where the fault lies, So I took the bottom tray off and lit the oven lo and behold out of about 50 holes only five are working that is like heating an oven with a candle.
and so off we went to find out how much a decent cooker with oven would be,
First we had to go down the narrow street for about 1000yards with a mixture of old and new dwellings but what I have noticed here in Luxor no one has the same kind of front door. I know I have done a series on balconies and doors before http://nilelife2.blogspot.com/2010/02/blog-post_06.html
I find them so fascinating like the first balconies opposite my flat none the same its like time has stood still after they where first painted and now years later life is back and all need another lick of paint but sadly only a few will get. no love is shown to anything here. its if its not broken do not fix then its to late and the demolition man steps in. each of the doors and places are dwellings. and we are not back in the 1800s. this is Luxor Egypt 2010 that houses the largest open air Museum and has one of the largest volume of tourists in the world.
.Sun bread rising by the front door before it is put in the oven. ( not mine)
.One up one down the tailor shop on my back street
.Even the new doors soon get to look aged
.We had a sandstorm today All windows doors and blinds shut it is still blowing outside thats 5 hours none stop sandstorm,
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