Self Cleaning Ovens

Remember the days when your mother would put on the yellow gloves, and spray the heck out the oven with Easy-Off? http://www.consumeraffairs.com/homeowners/easy_off_over_cleaner.html That stuff was so potent. The fumes alone would kill a small animal or child. But mother would be there spraying away, breathing in the toxic fumes all to get that oven clean. The back of the can even discusses how you should not get it on your skin for fear of burning. She would spray it on at night and then go to bed. Why before bed? How the heck could you have great dreams knowing what daunting task was waiting for you when you awoke. Maybe you would forget thinking it was a bad dream. You would wake up and be greeted in the kitchen to the aroma of your new Mr. Coffee maker (cutting edge appliance during those years) only to have the beauty of the morning come to a screeching halt. It was like a bad movie playing in the kitchen:

"Oven Cleaning Part II the sequel was about to take place."

This is when you would have to open the oven to see a foamy mess ready to be scraped up! You would snap your lovely yellow latex gloves into place and finish what the nighttime started. Since during those days paper towels were at a premium in my house mom would use newspaper. Down on the hands and knees she would enter the cavernous oven scraping out the residue that was once spilled gravy from the Swanson's chicken and gravy or grease from the bad piece of steak she broiled the hell out of until it was the consistency of shoe leather. The mouth of the oven swallowed her up for what seemed like hours. Once the main poison and monthly drippings were removed she would then wash the entire space down with a sponge and water. Ah and to then sit back and admire your hard work and the sparkle in the oven. What she was really thinking is "I am not going to cook another damn meal in this thing, it's all crock pot from here on out!"

How luck are we to now have self cleaning ovens. When mine gets ugly, before I head out for the day I flip on the self cleaning mode, shut the doors to the kitchen so the fumes don't set off the smoke alarms, and come back three hours later and voila clean oven! Sure I should maybe wipe it down with a sponge after to get the last bits out but why bother, it's just going to bake out the next time I make another fabulous meal.

The KB will never clean an oven the old fashion way. If your oven isn't self cleaning get another one or hire a maid.