Macgyver-ing

Today I cooked bolognese sauce. And lots of it. As a lazy man who is responsible for feeding himself I am firmly of the 'Cook lots of something and then eat it over the next week' school of cookery. Although cookery may be going too far; what I produce is food, but it's a long way from cuisine. My taste buds don't work very well, so I'm not too fussy about what I eat- as long as its food and its healthy I'll eat it. As I was cooking my mind wandered back to the most ingenious cooking moment in my life, notable not for the food, but for the cooking apparatus used- and so begins "The story of the sixty watt stove!"

My mum and step-dad like to take their caravan down to the sleepy sea-side village of Point Lonsdale every summer.  They used to live down there, and get back when they can. A few years back they were leaving the caravan unoccupied at a caravan park and going somewhere else, and invited me to stay. Thinking that a change of scenery could do me good I accepted.

The caravan had just been in for the caravan equivalent of a car service and I was assured that everything was working, so I went to the local supermarket and bought myself some food for dinner. Not being a man of expensive tastes when it comes to food (I am however particular to a good single malt whiskey) I bought myself a can of soup for dinner. When dinnertime rolled around I emptied the soup into a pot and tried to light the gas stove. Nothing. I checked the gas bottle, the connections, everything I could thing of. Still nothing. Having opened the soup, and being quite hungry, I was not going to let a minor detail like the stove not working stop me, nor was I going to eat my soup cold. (It should be made clear at this juncture that the caravan does not have a microwave.)


Necessity being the mother of invention I looked around the caravan for possible alternate sources of heat, and came up with: the bed side light. Yep, all sixty watts. While watching some environmentally themed show way back when I learned that incandecent light bulbs waste up to ninety percent of their electricity use as heat- normally a waste, but in this situation a road to dinner! I turned the fitting upside down and precariously balanced the pot on top of it, turned the light on and waited. And waited. Aaaaaaaand waited. Then I stirred the soup. Then waited. It took nearly an hour, but eventually the soup boiled and I ate it. It was delicious. Okay, it probably was average- it came out of a can, but seldom have I felt such a sense of accomplishment.

After spending most of the next day enjoying the seaside, I drove home. A few days later I told my mum about the trouble I had with the stove and my ingenious solution. She apologised profusely. Then told me that there was a back up stove hidden underneath one of the seats in the caravan. I'm still not sure whether to be vexed, or glad that I had the opportunity to exercise my inventiveness.