M vs Grill

I don't cook. Me + household appliances = no. I don't have the patience or the concentration levels required for cooking. Things end up either raw or burnt.

Yesterday, I came home from work and discovered teacakes in the bread bin. If I see teacakes, I'm going to want teacakes. So I put the grill on.

The cooker's built-in in this new house and the grill isn't separate, it's sort of inside the oven. I've not used it before but how hard can it be to grill something, right?

Smoke starts spewing out of the oven. I don't know what that's about but it doesn't smell good and the dog's sneezing. So I discover there's a grill plus fan option. Great, I put that on and slowly the smoke gets sucked in and goes away.

Awesome. I'm gonna toast me some teacakes. I put the teacakes under the grill and wait.

Did I mention I was impatient? Nothing seems to be happening. I fiddle with some knobs (one breaks off so I shove it back on) and then have a brainwave.

I'll simply move the shelf, and the teacakes, closer to the grill.

You would think this would be a simple thing. But no, the shelf slips out of my grasp and gets stuck on the grill, the teacakes have fallen down the back of the oven, and I'm cursing like a sailor.

The dog's standing there watching me with his mouth open. Probably stunned at my bad language.

I'm now trying to force the shelf out of the grill.

In the meantime, the tea towel is on fire. I realise this when the smoke re-appears and my hand seems to be getting rather hot.

I extinguish the tea towel, curse, and resume trying to force the shelf out of the grill.

I manage to set the tea towel alight again and decide to give up with the oven.

I really want toasted teacakes. But I'm not touching those at the back of the oven - they've touched greasy stuff. Yuck. So I leave the shelf, and the teacakes, inside the oven, turn the thing off and slam the door to let it know exactly what I think of it.

I turn to the toaster. Our toaster doesn't work properly. The button you press to make the toast pop up does nothing. At the old house, we'd simply turn the toaster off at the mains.

I get a new teacake, slice it in half (trying to make it thin because I'm going to be ramming this thing into the toaster) and pop it into the toaster.

It takes about two seconds before there's smoke coming out of the toaster. I go to turn it off, but the button doesn't work and, in this house, the main plug is behind the microwave.

I get the knife. (I know, I know, don't stick knives into toasters). I rescue one half of a nicely browned teacake.

I go to open the door to let some of the smoke out, come back and the toaster has finished doing its thing and popped up. But the other half is stuck inside it (it's brown. There are burnt currants). Using the knife, I manage to gouge the bloody thing free.

I slather both slices in butter and scoff the lot. Yummiest thing I've had in ages.