When I arrived here at our boondocking spot, I celebrated. I took pictures. I walked, and gleefully thought about having time to cook! What should I eat? I decided to celebrate with the last of a package of Trader Joe's chicken and green chile tamales, along with a green salad. (It was especially a celebration because I'd thought these were all gone until I started packing for this trip, then found them buried in the freezer. I bought them back here and since then have been through an entirely different and disappointing brand of Trader Joe's chicken and green chile tamales.) (Edited to add: I just realized that those very disappointing tamales were cheese and green chiles, with no chicken at all!)
I needed to steam them, and reached for the pot with steamer basket that lives in the bottom drawer of the oven. This drawer.
It was jammed. Shut tight. Remember in the last post, where I said I'd used 3 baking sheets? They had come from 2 different storage locations. Heck, I'd thought, they nest just fine. I'll let them all ride together.
That turned out to be a bad idea. I thought a lot about Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and Anoia, the Goddess of Things That Get Stuck in Drawers. She can sometimes be appeased by simply rattling drawers. Would that do the trick, or would a more serious sacrifice -- like, my beautiful oven -- be required?
It took a lot of rattling until I could get the drawer open a little way, then prying and shuffling items blindly with a spatula and ruler until I could things rearranged enough to unstick the drawer. Out came the pot in question...
...and out came the offending 3rd sheet pan. It's back in its earlier position now. Be careful about how much stuff you put into a drawer, especially in a house that moves!
Whew. I steamed the tamales,
made myself a nice salad, and breathed a prayer of thanks.
Thanks, Anoia!
