If it were good enough for Betty and Lucy....

One of the great monoliths of United States business is Westinghouse. It has been around forever, and has made everything from train brakes to escalators to household appliances.

Their glory days were probably the 1950's, when they sponsored "I Love Lucy", and had the Lucy/Desi team to do their commercials, along with the equally beloved but less remembered Betty Furness - their company spokeswoman for many years, and the woman who will go down in history as the person who was able to adlib her way through a live television commercial when the refrigerator she was hawking malfunctioned and the door wouldn't open.

While it still sort of exists, it is now a media company, and doesn't make anything anymore - but they still license out the name so that just about any shoddy junk you see might be a "Westinghouse" product. Caveat Emptor, as my dad used to say.

But when it comes to good old-fashioned, all-American Swellishness, they deliver the goods, in the form of the iconic Westinghouse Roaster.



The versatile energy vampire was a standard feature in working kitchens in the midwest when I was growing up. Women who looked like the ladies in "The Far Side" cartoons used them to make hams and turkeys for family reunions. Or heating up those massive cans of beans for church suppers. Or for those extra pies on Thanksgiving.

My aunts, many of whom bore more than a passing resemblence to the Far Side ladies, all had these roasters - or at least the farm aunts did. The city aunts, who tended to poo-poo "serious" cooking, wouldn't be caught dead with them, and bought crappy jello salads and spam casseroles to our family reunions, where they cowered next to these behemoths, both sartorially and gastronomically.

We originally had two of these, but one - the lovely "Miss Electric Chicken" (named after the amazing logo) somehow got lost in the move to Chez Vel-DuRay, so we have been struggling along with just the one. But hopefully that will change soon. One seems them around town from time-to-time, even here in sophisticated Seattle.

So if you are looking for a handy second oven, remember the Westinghouse Roaster. As Betty Furness used to say, "You can be SURE if it's Westinghouse" She never said what you can be sure of, but rest assured that you can be sure.