Other People's Houses -Brooklyn

When we were looking for a place to live in Bali, we easily looked at twenty different places to live. When I walked into the house that had an oven, I said we'd take it. It was the first oven I had seen in any of the houses we had looked at; indeed, it was one of two ovens on the entire island I heard of. I was thankful for my choice over the next few months as I baked loaves of pumpkin bread, zucchini bread, muffins, and roasted vegetables. Though the house did have its drawbacks: when we took our son to the healer for his chronic constipation that had not responded to ridiculous amounts of fiber, water, prune juice, or rounds and rounds of nasty ass-ed smelling Chinese herbs or homeopathic treatments (though the homeopathics did improve things a little), we learned that his constipation was due to a lack of phosphorus and salt. Oh, and thanks to the house, he had disturbed sleep. Our house was full of wayward spirits. And she didn't mean the rats I caught scurrying in the kitchen. Consequently, part of our bedtime routine became to walk through out the house shouting: "DISPERSE YOU WAYWARD SPIRITS!"

It is baffling for all the ceremonies and offerings purely for the purpose of appeasing and pacifying spirits, that indeed the waywards found their way into our house.

The house we're currently subletting in Brooklyn has no wayward spirits near as I can tell. I suspect this is because the house has its original windows complete with drafts and the waywards have been frozen out. So we're not haunted. The price we pay for this little luxury is the gusts of air that blow past our heads as we sleep.

Yet, this apartment has been meticulously restored. The crown moldings, the chandeliers, the hard wood floors, the porcelain bathtub that is the perfect width and length - Edith Wharton or any of her characters could have lived here. I have realized I grew up spoiled in that I grew up in old turn of the century houses, but the first thing my parents did was update the windows for the sake of their heating bill. In this apartment, you have to stand back from the window, otherwise you get the chill. You shudder, the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, and well, the house might as well be full of wayward spirits skittering about.

This apartment does have an oven, but I don't think it's ever been used. For the life of me I can't figure out how to turn it on. I'm not even sure it's hooked up to the gas line.  Not that it matters because there's no pans for baking or roasting anything. At our culinary fingertips, we have a crock pot, a saute pan and a soup pot. I looked up recipes for the crock pot and came up with little more than recipes for pot roast and chili. For some reason, I thought crock pots were making a come back, but I was wrong about this. It seems outside of the Midwest, people don't really use them or devise new recipes for them.

So I face a new challenge when it comes to meal planning. But if Anthony Bourdain can make risotto  in a hotel room with nothing more than an electric tea kettle, well, then, I probably have enough kitchen accouterments to whip up a Christmas Eve feast. Except by then, we'll be staying somewhere else.