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Saturday, April 10, 2010

Press the temp button and the up arrow

I'd already packed up our new Cuisinart convection oven toaster broiler to return to Costco, but thought I'd first check the book for the instructions about setting temperature. My wife and I had tried this morning to set it at 350 to bake my Mary B's buttermilk biscuit. "Press the Temp button," she'd said, "and hold it down while you press the Up arrow." The starting temperature of 150 hadn't moved. We tried it several times. Once the temperature moved up to 175, another time to 175 then 200. But mostly it stayed stuck on 150. Twenty or thirty minutes later, the biscuit had come out a sodden lump of visually unappealing dough.
    I quickly found, on p. 3, under "Quick Reference Oven Operation," the instructions to:
•  Press Bake or Conv Bake
•  Press Temp
•  Press Up or Down arrow to enter temperature
•  Press Start/Stop to start oven
Hmm, nothing about continuing to hold "Temp"....
    I took the book to my wife. "Where did you read that about holding Temp down while pressing an arrow?"
    She took the book and said, "Right here, on. p. 6, under convection bake: 'Press the Temp button and the Up arrow to increase the temperature.'"
    "At the same time?"
    "Of course! It says, 'Press the Temp button and the Up arrow.'"
    I showed her p. 3 and said, "I think they probably should have said to press the Temp button, then press the Up arrow."
    "Okay," she allowed, "let's try it."
    I unpacked everything and she plugged it in. Then she pressed Bake, then Temp, then the Up arrow a few times.
    Voilà! The temperature read-out rose to 175, 200, 225, 250, 300, 325, 350.
    I said, "I bet the times the temperature moved up before, we weren't holding Temp down at the same time."

Siegfried and I didn't have to drive to Costco!

4 comments:

  1. Stories like this make my blood temperature rise to 350 degrees. No oven needed. No one cares about the clarity of language. It's not just makers of household appliances, electronic equipment, toys, and all sorts of gadgets; it's the guy on the street who says, "Ya say Smith's Funeral Parlor? Go a few blocks, turn right, go a few more blocks. Ya can't miss it." It's a small miracle every time knowledge successfully leaps from one brain to another.

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  2. LOL the biggest barrier to communication is the assumption that it has taken place! I forget who said that, but it is SO true. And I can only imagine how annoyed mom was getting that you were not "doing it right".

    This reminds me of Matt buying a paper towel holder at costco for Polly. It came disasemled with three parts and some screws. Matt and Mark attempted to assemble it per the instructions for about 20 mins before giving up and putting it back in the box to return. They came back into the kitchen later and there it was on the counter assembled. They were stumped that Polly was able to understand the instructions and she said she hadn't even noticed there WERE instructions! She just looked at the pieces and figured out how they must go together!

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  3. Ken, while the cited sentence did need work, the prominent bulleted list (three pages earlier) seemed clear.
        I regret only that I didn't consult the book before blithely assuming that my wife had it competently covered. After all, the way it happened, I packed the appliance for return prematurely and had to unpack it a second time (after coming to my senses).

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  4. Pineapple Girl, good on Polly!
        Your mother and I might have been served as well to ignore the book ourselves, but there are so many damn buttons on this Cuisinart, I don't think we'd ever have accumulated the confidence required to go it alone.

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