I was hoping we weren’t going to have to buy new appliances right now. We’re putting in windows and our front gate (yesterday) went from almost falling apart to collapsed. It was delivering the stove that did it.

When they opened the gate to take out the old stove and then bring in the new one, the old gate made its final gasp. Now, if anyway pulls it open, it will become shards of wood, good for a bonfire maybe, but not much else. We can’t get it fixed until the weather warms up and the ice and snow melts. A bit too long for a cranky old gate. We won’t be able to get anyone to come here to work on it until the weather warms up. All we can do is block the gate and hope for the best.

So. We have a new stove. It’s similar to the one but with a few nice upgrades. For example, you can adjust the oven temperature up or down by as much as 35 degrees (Fahrenheit). Which is exactly what we did! We put the oven thermometer in its middle, saw it was running about 325 when it should have been 350. We adjusted it and voila! Now, it’s exactly on target. We can bake!

The stove surface burners have several nice upgrades. The first is that three of the four primary burners work on two widths — wide or very wide or small. The left front combo burner is called a “Super Boiler.” It supposedly brings water to a boil faster than a standard burner. I used it tonight to get the water for pasta ready. It turned out to be faster than the old burner, but hugely faster. The right side burner is several inches wider than any burner I’ve ever seen. I have some very large pans which will fit perfectly. There is a fifth “Warming” burner. It doesn’t get as hot as the other burners and is designed to keep a sauce or something like that warm. This is something I’ve wanted for a long time. Also, the right side front burner has a “melt” function, apparently intended so you can melt frozen food without burning it.

Lastly, the oven has its own built-in air fryer. Whether or not we’ll use it? Our countertop oven does a good job air-frying most things, so I’m not sure whether or not we need two. Maybe for making scalloped potatoes which need more space than is available in the small oven?

We made frozen pizza in the oven last night and it came out perfectly. When we make it in the small oven, one side is usually just a little overdone and the opposite side just a wee bit underdone. This time, it was just right all around. The stove will age and it won’t stay perfect. But at least for a while, it will be perfect.

Finally, the controls are make sense. They are clearly labeled and easy to understand, even if you don’t know much about cooking. You don’t need a manual to figure out which control does what and each control has both a start and stop. I could even figure out how to set the oven timer, something which in 13 years I never figured out on the old stove.

It’s shiny and new. I cooked on it for the first time today. I almost didn’t want to use it. It was pristine. Why ruin it with messy food? Of course the point of getting a new stove is to make food. The old stove had given up on the whole cooking thing. It wanted a nice, long retirement in stove heaven. Somehow, I am betting it will be rebuilt and will live one more life.

Categories: #Food, #Photography, Anecdote, baking, Cooking, Kitchen

Tags: #Photography, baking, Cooking, Kitchen, Kitchen applicances, Marilyn Armstrong