Kelly’s Unnecessary Blog

I actually accomplished half of my move-to-London-sometime-before-I-die action plan involving this year’s income tax refund. I got a new stove and I love it! (I’ll get the refrigerator next year.)

Now I admit, it wouldn’t be hard to improve on the old one. It probably dated back twenty-plus years to when my building was redone in the condominiums it is today. The guy from whom I bought my place did a nice job getting it in shape, but during my tenure the old stove did nothing to promote itself. It had two interrelated issues. The oven door handle kept coming unscrewed on one end and falling off, but to resecure it tightly enough, the inside panel of the door got misaligned.

No longer so. Happy days are here again.

The new appliance’s initial selling point (other than its very newness) was its flat top. It seems like such a duh for an electric stove. But now that it’s delivered, installed, and in use—oh boy! The bonus of the flat stovetop is that it’s a much more practical staging area for putting the groceries away.

It’s true, it’s just the most basic, least expensive Kenmore model, but by golly, it’s awesome! I’ve been trying to restrict myself to synonyms of awesome, unless something truly warrants that adjective, because it is quite overused these days. I know a lot of what I’m experiencing is, again, by sheer virtue of its newness and the improvements in technology in the ensuing years, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable!

Though the delivery guys arrived at the very last moment of the stated delivery window, they were very professional and competent. I didn’t actually have any cooking planned until twenty-four hours later, so for the first while I merely gazed lovingly at the flat top. But since then, I’ve had several private moments of joy.

The oven door has a window. The oven has a light inside it. Not only does the light go on when I open the door, but there is a switch with which to turn it on if I simply want to watch the paint of my baking item dry.

The burners operate with traditional physical dials, but the oven is controlled by beepy electronic buttons. Baking temperature, check. Preheated indicator, check. But wait! THERE ARE TWO SPEEDS OF BROILER! You read that right. There is HI broil and LO broil! And as if that weren’t enough, there is an on-board timer. How did it know that I was about fed up with my crappy wind-up egg timer? My new stove is the captain’s chair of the Starship Enterprise!

I haven’t seen it. It’s new to me.

And it’s AWESOME!