Stephanie teaches her Mom a new trick...

We have lived in this house for 11.5 years and I have used this stove-top all this time. There have been a few times when I thought we might have to replace the stove-top as the element for the big burner would sometimes not completely work. Sometimes only the inner element would get hot.

Well, last night, Stephanie was in the kitchen helping me prepare dinner, it being her month as kitchen helper. This time she wanted to be involved in all aspects of it...and I was delighted to have the help!

While I was preparing the potatoes for frying (peeling the baked potatoes and cutting them up), I asked Stephanie to get out the two frying pans and put them on the stove. We needed to cook the bacon first, so I asked her to turn on the burner for the big frying pan on the big element to get the pan heated up. I watched as she pushed the knob down and then turned it to the left until it was at the medium high spot. Now, I usually turn it to the right, but didn't really think anything of it...just as long as the pan heated up.

This time, it seemed like the pan was taking a very long time to heat up, but I put in the bacon anyway. I was right...only the center of the pan was hot...and checking the element below noticed that only the center was getting red. At this point I bemoaned to Steve that yet another thing is broken and might be needing to be replaced! We already have three other things in that catagory! (Air conditioner, lawn mower and computer monitor). Replacing the stove-top is not high on our list at this time!

So I switched the pan to the left burner, which is a bit smaller than the pan, but would be better than the small element currently working. During this switch, Stephanie noticed something I had never looked at before. Just above the knob for the bottom right burner, there are drawings to indicate that if you turn it to the right, the big element would work. If you turn to the left, only the smaller inner element would turn on.

Yeah for Stephanie...I can now cook a small pan on the big element! Or rather the inner element on the front. I am sooooooo willing to learn from my daughter!