Tam, I know it's after Christmas, but I'm hoping you and your family had a wonderful and blessed Christmas and I wanted you to know how much I've enjoyed your beautiful decorations and tablesettings. You are such a talented photographer also. I have to confess.... You may see some tablesettings that look a lot like your's! I was so blown away by all of them, but the one with the sage green tablecloth and napkins I must have! It's meant to be, because I walked in TJ Maxx the day after Christmas and there were your hobnail plates just waiting for me! I already have the chargers and well as as some other things I can use. Oh, Happy Day!! I'm still looking for a Christmas goose. And the darling silverware holding stockings were 2 for $1 in blue, green, and white! Happy New Year! Can't wait to see your January table! Betty

I had a sudden oven failure in my older 30" RNB, and happened to see the obvious cause. I don't have a wiring diagram, but the circuit is so simple that it's not really necessary. The line from the plug goes along the side of the range to the control knobs, spark unit and igniters. It delivers 120v to the thermostat. When the oven or broiler is switched on, the thermostat passes that 120V back to the thermovalve, which in turn sends it down to the appropriate oven or broiler igniter, which in turn connects directly to the neutral wire from the plug. My range's problem was caused by a misrouting of the wires that bring power up to the oven igniter. Instead of having been passed through the big hole that's obviously provided for them at the front of the range, they were pinched between the side panel and frame of the range, squeezing them very tightly. Finally the insulation degraded enough to cause a short, with a moment of sparking that made the location of the problem obvious. The short damaged the internal circuitry in the thermovalve, which is not protected by a fuse, so the thermovalve is shot. It only hurt the oven-side circuitry; the broiler, which is handled by the same valve, is fine. It's conceivable that such a short would knock out the thermostat, but in my case it didn't. I will have to replace the thermovalve and the wires going to the igniter, rerouting them to avoid a repeat performance.

Thank-you, Rita! It's very kind of you to go to all that trouble! I was just comparing to when I make a turkey it's 20-22 lb. and when I make a chicken it's 3.75-4.25 lb., because that's what I buy. So I thought maybe you knew offhand how big your geese were. The recipe itself sounds simple, as you said, and also delicious. Thank-you very much for everything. I agree with the watching, but it also goes in retrospection. When I ask my mother how to make some old favorite, I've done the watching, know pretty much what the ingredients were, and just need a few details on proportion. The famous Auntie S's blintz "recipe" for the pancakes (which are about 3-4 times thicker than crêpes) has the important step of "you know it's the right consistency when you're using a rotary crank egg beater in a 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup and the crank feels like X, and when you lift it out of the batter it flows off of it like Y. Definitely had to be there. :) But blintzes are for a whole different holiday! Back to your regularly scheduled Christmas dinner!

My stepdad disliked turkey and always wanted a goose for Christmas (which are very hard to get here). When DD was about 3, we moved to the country town where we have lived ever since. On the local grocery store notice board I saw someone had pinned up a card offering geese for Christmas, so I ordered one. On delivery day, the vendor turned up and handed me a hessian sack that was moving. I froze like a deer in headlights. “It’s still alive? What do we do with it?” I quailed. “Your DH has his police revolver, doesn’t he?” the guy joked (police revolvers here are kept securely locked in the station gun cabinet when the police officer issued it is not on duty) as he left. I called a lady I knew who I also knew killed and dressed her own chickens for advice. She advised me to dispatch it, let it hang overnight and bring it over first thing in the morning. Making sure DD was busy playing in her room (not wanting to traumatise her), we took the goose out to the backyard where there was a large tractor tire sandpit that DD played in. We stretched the goose’s neck across the side of the tyres and DH quickly beheaded it with a very sharp machete we used to cut down weeds in the yard (when we moved in it was very overgrown), while I held onto it so it didn’t go wandering around headless in the yard- that was a visual I was keen to avoid. Note: Don’t do this next to a Super-6 fence. Even if you hose off the blood straight away, you’ll always be able to tell where the bloodstains were if you look closely enough. We hung the goose overnight in the (empty) chicken house where DD couldn’t see it. Next morning I took to the lady I knew, who expertly plucked and dressed it for me. I took it to stepdad, who was very pleased, but as we didn’t have Christmas dinner with my mother that year, I didn’t actually get to eat any of it. I haven’t done this again, once was enough :-)