Wood-Burning Stove

Snapshot of a wood-burning stove with its balanced stones and the metallic cooking grid in the middle, displayed at Mi Pueblito in Panama City, Panama. Photo ©Omar Upegui R.

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Putting It On the Back Burner

If you are studying English as a second language, you already know there are many phrases that don’t have a literal meaning.  Sometimes you have to be a native speaker of the language to know what is really meant.  These are the so-called idioms or idiomatic phrases.  “Put it on the back burner” is one of them.

“Put it on the back burner” means, put aside for the time being, as a subject that is not of immediate concern but that may be activated later. Postponed.

From cooking. almost all stoves have front and back burners. The things you need to pay careful attention to should be up front, under immediate attention. Things that can simmer away without immediate attention can be pushed to the back burners where they can be looked into from time to time, but don’t need to be attended to just now.

The metaphor has been extended to all kinds of activities.  On your To Do list of life, some things need to be done Now while less urgent things can be pushed to the back burner.

You can also put something on the front burner; meaning you have to do it as soon as possible.  In life you need to prioritize and learn how to do it correctly in order to meet your goals.

For example, I placed the purchase of a DSLR on the back burner until I acquire more experience with my Canon PowerShot A720 IS. On the other hand, I placed the purchase of an Amazon Kindle on the front burner to save money on the purchase of e-books.

Below are several pictures of front and back burners of our home stove.  I really enjoyed watching the dynamic soft blue flame of the burner.  By the way, this is a stove which uses butane, also known as LPG.  In Panama it is cheaper to use butane stoves than electric ones.  The difference in operating costs is considerable.

Photograph of one of the burners of our home LPG stove. Notice the soft blue flame of the burner. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Photograph of a closer view of our stove's burner. I can't recall if this is our front or back burner. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

This is one of the two back burners of our stove. It represents the purchase of a DSLR camera which has been postponed for next year. Our current compact camera is doing just fine as you can see in this picture. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Photograph of a zoomed image of a burner from our Westinghouse LPG stove. The pale blue flame is just awesome. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

And now you know what it means to put something on the back or front burner.  Good Day.

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