I love to cook and do most of the meal planning and prep for my family. Now that I’m officially retired, “going out to dinner whenever the hell we want to” has faced budgetary scrutiny. We could do it, but subconsciously, I’m holding back a bit while I get my arms around living on a fixed income. That phrase always makes me smile. Back when my dad was alive and busting balls on the golf course, he’d always go there when the post-18 bar bill arrived, “I’m on a fixed income!” As genetics would have it, that phrase is now a regular in my post-retirement lexicon.
In the past couple of weeks, the cooking-at-home thing has run into a couple of obstacles. First, the right-front double burner of my electric range now produces heat only from the small inner burner. Second, the microwave above it suffered a sudden death over the weekend. I use it only to thaw frozen stuff, reheat leftovers, and most importantly, froth ⅓ of a cup of oat milk for each cup of coffee in the morning. Still, it is missed. Just today, I had to heat the oat milk in a saucepan and a leftover Super Bowl half a steak and cheese in a sautee pan. I appreciate the analog deceleration of life this provides, but I suspect slow cooking will get old fast.
As is my wont, I spent much of Super Sunday conducting thorough research and hands-on inspections of replacement appliances. Back in 2014, a kitchen reno brought a Whirlpool suite of appliances into my kitchen. My research found that the lifespan of major appliances is roughly 13-15 years, so we’re a tad early on the cooking units, but it doesn’t make financial sense to repair them. The fridge and dishwasher are still fully functional, so my initial research focused on Whirlpool to keep the family together, but the reviews these days aren’t great. In fact, customer opinions aren’t very good on any of the major brands. It’s a capitalism thing. Manufacturers have to improve profit margins every year, so that means cutting costs for humans and the raw materials used to build these things. So, Whirlpool… Didn’t make the cut.
My strategy now is to settle on a new brand to replace the range and microwave, then deal with the other two when the time comes. Back to research. I’ll tell you, these AI tools rely quite a bit on Reddit threads, and what they show is overall dissatisfaction with appliance brands. Now, Bosch has always been a brand I associate with quality, so I explored it. They have a 100, 300, 500, and 800 series hierarchy, and the 800 had the best reviews and, naturally, the highest price point. The rest of the brands were largely bunched together – GE, LG, Maytag, Frigidaire, Samsung. One brand that piqued my interest and held up in reviews was GE Profile, one of several GE sub-brands. Now to get physical.
Locally, we have Best Buy, Lowe’s, and Home Depot, although I will never give the latter a dime if I can help it, mostly for political reasons, although a large corporation like Lowe’s probably splits their political contributions around to both major parties. We do have a local appliance chain, and I don’t know the owner’s political leanings, and I don’t want to. In any case, I prefer to support a local small business. On Sunday afternoon, I waded through a sea of appliances and got hands-on with some brands to see if I could “feel” a difference in quality. How do the doors open? How do they close? How do the knobs turn? Are there knobs at all? What is the build quality of fit and finish? How are the aesthetics? I want back and forth, literally walking from one unit to the next, opening, closing, feeling, looking.
After pacing and thinking, I chose units from the Bosch 800 line and opted for the electric, smooth-top range over an induction model. I was introduced to induction cooking during a 2018 trip to Europe, when a non-iron pan just wouldn’t heat up. Yep, magnetize me. From what I now understand, a strong induction burner will boil water about 2x faster than a standard electric stovetop and is slightly more energy-efficient, but not worth the $1,300.00 premium in my opinion.
Delivery and installation will be in a week. Until then, I’ll be heating oat milk and leftovers the old-fashioned way.
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