Situational Limitations

My apartment is tiny. Seriously, majorly, not even kidding tiny. My landlord says it's 300 square feet, but I think he's measuring generously. Call me crazy, but I kind of love it. When it's just me, it's wonderfully cozy. Nothing is too far from anything and every bit of space is used. When my boyfriend or someone else is here, or god forbid a few friends at once, it's less pleasant.

Which brings me to the kitchen. This picture shows what I'm working with. That's it. About 1 foot of 'counter' space, a mini-stove and fridge. It's beyond minimal, but I'm used to it and it makes me feel very accomplished to wrest a three-course dinner from its tiny confines. I use the floor a lot for extra work space, but don't tell my mom.
The oven cracks me up. It's quite new, installed when I moved in last June, and presumably ordered from Slum Landlords 'R Us. There are no temperature settings on the oven dial. Observe.

The manual says, and I quote, "Imagine that the control has three sections: Low, Bake, and Broil." Uhh, imagine that it had some *numbers* printed on it! Being an engineer, I busted out the protractor and charted out where basics like 350 and 425 should be, based on the temperature range given in the manual. Those black marks on the dial are my work. After a few weeks of everything either burning or taking five hours to cook, I got an oven thermometer and discovered that I should also be imagining the dial working in reverse. Turning the dial towards high lowers the temperature, turning toward low raises it. D'oh.

It must be impossible to make a bad gas range, though, cause that part works great. I hope to never again suffer the indignities of an electric range, but one day I'd like to have a full size stove I can get two big pans on at the same time.