At least when I said, "I'm so blogging this", they understood

You know where this is going, don't you?

I set the oven's delay bake feature before going to bed last night (didn't actually put the roast in the oven until just before I left the house this morning), very carefully checking the delay time, cooking temperature and roasting time. When I got up this morning, the timer showed the appropriate number of hours left until cooking would commence.

While I make a point of exposing my flightier moments on this blog, the truth is I'm considerably smarter than the average bear (and have papers to prove it), as well as being imbued with an uncommon helping of common sense (and have papers to prove it). My vocational training is such that I double and often triple check things out of habit.

All this to say I am one hundred percent certain the oven was set correctly.

Nevertheless, when I came home from church this morning, no wondrous smells of maple pork goodness were wafting from the kitchen.

The oven was stone cold.

The only thing I can figure is that the delay bake doesn't work unless the oven temperature is set at 350 degrees or more, whilst I set it for 325. Note that the oven manual does not actually say this anywhere; however, in the instructions for setting the baking temperature for the delay bake feature, it says, "Press More+ pad to set baking time." Apparently, we are supposed to infer from that statement that temperatures below 350 cannot be used (anytime you set the oven to "bake", it automatically sets to 350 unless you change it).

Sigh. So we talked and looked at wedding pictures before lunch, listening to our tummies growl as we waited for the roast to get marginally past the trichinosis stage.

It was worth the wait.

Still, next time, I'm inviting people for dinner, not lunch.