After 24 years, my builder’s model White Westinghouse range is circling the drain. It takes 35 minutes to preheat to 400. It won’t self-clean anymore. The electric coils are very loose in their sockets.
About five years ago I lusted for a new stove. The rest of the kitchen works fine, except for the refrigerator light. I like the layout. I had plans to pull out the hood (a brand that applianceadvisor.com says “specializes in ugly cheap hoods”) and make the range a Jenn-air downdraft, but then what would I do with that short cabinet?
So, since I have matured enough to appreciate the kitchen I have, all I want to do is replace the range with a new range, and replace the hood filter, which I haven’t done ever. In 26 years. I’ve never washed the windows either. You shut up. I washed my mother’s windows and I am done. God can wash my windows if he likes.
So, here are the options I want / don’t want:
Coil burner cooktop: no. This rules out all budget ranges.
Stainless Steel: no. This rules out most high-end ranges.
Two ovens: a waste
Convection: sure, okay. Mom had it and liked it.
Mom also had some fancy cooktop with heavy metal modules you could swap. Evidently that is passe: everyone is a-gush over the induction cooktops now. It cooks with magnets! Don’t people get their jewelry sucked into the soup?
Mom had controls on the front, and for a while I wanted those too, then I remembered I’d need to add tile behind the range, and my butt is always turning on the dishwasher, so it would try to cook too.
One thing I don’t need, that I bet I end up with, is Sabbath mode. It would seem Orthodox Jews Jewish People aren’t supposed to light their ovens on the Sabbath, but if the oven is already lit they can keep food warm. So this Sabbath mode keeps your oven going.
The opposite sounds like a feature I want, the automatic six hour shut off. And the Babka setting.
I’ve got a call in to a friend with a flat cooktop. I need to find out if it scratches and where the milk goes when it boils over.
I need your advice too. Have you bought a range in the last 24 years?
20 responses to “Well Done, Good and Faithful But Kind of Tacky Servant”
Google– ‘GE oven fire’ for reasons you may not want to consider a GE oven. Seems to be scarily common.
Want to guess what country GE ovens are made in these days?
I have a flattop. I think it sucks. It’s a bitch to clean which I thought it would not be. You have to clean it with white vinegar and baking soda/and/or expensive polish. Crap boils over and bakes on hard. It will scratch.
Why you no like 2 ovens? I would love that.
Loved my ceramic cooktops. Whirlpool. You should let me redecorate your kitchen.
P.S. Gettin’ a lot of spam, are ya?
P.P.S. Glass cooktops never scratched for me even with a brillo pad.
Marcia is officially the first person I know of who is satisfied with a flattop stove.
I like the idea of two ovens, but I wonder about turkeys and roasts. Is there enough room?
Cooking with gas is the only way to go.
I gotta agree with Hattie re: fuel delivery choice.
A couple of years ago, the ancient Tappan oven that came with the house was giving out little farts of gas. The guy from the utilities co. checked it out and said it was all in my head, but I decided that I would override science (as usual) and do what my heart and my nose told me.
Over the years, I’ve been in the process of changing over the almond appliances to white, so my requirements were:
– White
– Gas
– Not look like an apartment stove, which most did.
I ended up with a Whirlpool with “Accubake”.
I hardly use the damn thing because I keep forgetting to turn off the burners when I do use it. Of course, this terrifies me and convinces me I have early onset dementia which I should realize it’s just because I hardly ever use the damn thing.
Complicated answer to a simple question. As usual.
The instructions that came with the flattop specifically said not to use scratchy brillo pads on it or it would scratch it. I demand to see Marcia’s stove because I want to know if it is made of alloys of this world or she has a martian flattop. I bet she runs with scissors too.
I love my flattop stove! It’s a Kenmore made by Frigidaire, and I’ve had it for 5 years now. My daughter lives with us; she and I cook at least 2 meals a day. She’s prone to making a big, greasy, boiled over mess of things so I appreciate a stove that’s easy to clean.
The key to keeping it clean is to use the cleaning polish frequently so it creates a protective layer that keeps crud from sticking. I use Weimans Cooktop cleaner, and it’s not terribly pricey. A bottle costs about $5 around here, and it lasts me 4 or 5 months.
Almost every morning I wash the top of the stove with a sudsy dishrag, dry it with a towel, and then polish it with the cleaner and a couple of paper towels. This takes about 2 minutes…I usually do it while waiting for my cup of tea to heat up in the microwave. If there’s a burnt-on splotch of food it can take a bit longer to scrub off, but most things wipe right up.
Mine does have a couple of very small scratches…those happened when the decorative plate fell off the wall and shattered on the stove. 🙁
Oh, there’s a bit of a rim around the edge, so just limit the milk boilovers to a cup or three and that should be fine. It is FABULOUS not to have to take all those burners and liners apart to clean!
And I just realized I sound like a flattop stove saleswoman or an evangelist for the Church of Flattop. O.o
Arlene – dang, and a Ge is one recommended by Consumer Reports. But I don’t like the Profile look either.Zayrina- It would be a waste. I can only see it for cooking two batches of cookies at once. I only cook for two. Plus I need that room to store cake pans in.Marcia- no, because I am all about the induction now. Plus no one trusts your judgement after the Brillo comment.Caroline-you are right, neither is a full oven. Do you think maybe some flattops are ceramic and some are glass?Hattie-I fear fire. Induction people compare it favorably to gas.Becs- induction cooks with magnets. If you remove the pot, the circuit is broken. Zayrina- Marcia’s been giddy for weeks since she found her “biomom.” Not rational. Given to expansive statements.Beth- I just read that the trick to keeping your induction cooktop clean is to PUT A SHEET OF PARCHMENT PAPER BETWEEN THE POT AND BURNER. Going out to buy right Now.
I have a Hotpoint (GE?) and I am messier than anyone on here and I LOVELOVELOVE this stovetop. Period.
I love my flattop too – I’ve barely used the cleaning fluid, I just use soap and water and don’t leave anything on it too long and it’s not hard to clean. My sister’s about to buy an induction. I’m afraid of fire too – but apparently you don’t have to light the gas burners any more. Anyway, I was going to say you totally had me with your post title.
I am thinking of paying thousands of dollars and letting there be a gas conduit pipe in the ceiling of my basement to switch to gas. Love, love, love gas.
That being said, I have a flat top that was in my house when I bought it in 98. I had no choice but if we get another electric because I decide I don’t want to spend craptons of money to convert to gas we will get another flat top.
I am not ultra picky about every single thing being perfect so I can’t say if mine has a few minor scratches.
I boil over ALL THE TIME. I never correctly guesstimate the size of the pan I need for the amount of food I am cooking. I can’t tell you how many times there has been standing water on my flattop. I haven’t had an electric fire yet. Lovely.
It does get stuff burned onto the burners. I have cleaned them with brushes, brillo pads and just taken my chefs knife and scraped the crap off. It all works. Scratches??? I don’t think so and the fact that I scrape it with anything that comes to hand and I haven’t messed up the electronics even after submersing it in liquid says good things about it.
Dr. Sexy and I have talked and if we go electric it will be a flat top.
HTH
For the record, I just checked and it’s some self cleaning Magic Chef flattopped electric
I guess from the safety standpoint induction is best.
Of course there’s always take out.
Gotta say – I love my flat top. Messy cook, hate to clean, it’s no biggie on cleanup (Maytag – Gemini?). The spendy special polish works well and isn’t spendy if you loathe housework and rarely use it?
Also lurve my two ovens. Top one is in use all the time, heats speedy-quick and is perfect for little stuff (and meals for 2). Bottom one handled a 24 lb turkey – recommend knee pads for kneeling to baste, though.
Did spill a tear or two over giving up gas, but got over it the first time I wiped the flat cooktop clean.
All – really, I did go out and buy mine after my last post, in fact I went into debt on it. Kenmore 97203. (That isn’t the price I paid.) Stainless, damn, but the Lemon pledge stainless cleaner works well. Oh, and I DO have Sabbath mode. I might try the Babka again.CountryGirl – “I’m messier than anyone on here” is just a flat-out challenge. I’m terrified to find out what is going to happen when they pull out the old oven and find either a) the twenty odd years of crumbs I’ve swept in there or b)the mice that have eaten the crumbs.Allison – I imagine I’ll use soap and water, and then the Soft Scrub and Lemon pledge stainless when people are on the way over. I already do this with the chrome in the bathrooms, it gets Klean N Shine only when people are coming by. Brenda – Really, gas people are won over to induction pretty fast. They say it’s more reactive than gas evem, because you don’t have to wait for the heat to conduct through the metal. Hattie – Safer, and they say significantly more energy efficient.Zayrina – There was tonight. There will be takeout and soup (the burners still work). I have been craving roasts and turkeys and baked goods of course now that the oven is sketchy. Mare – You know, I might go into a Weekend baking mode, when I make cookies and cakes and casseroles all at once on the weekend, and now I can line them up and bake them at the same time. Oh, and this is crazy – this oven has a feature in which you can turn OFF the oven baking smells. I use my nose more than the timer to tell if something’s done.
“When you can smell it, it’s done” is what an Aboriginal man said to me as he threw a kangaroo tail into the campfire (wrapped in foil as a gesture towards our wussy townie sensibilities). It’s clearly a universal cooking guide.
Big Dot – If I am not in the kitchen, I can count count on Gary to scream in a panic “I CAN SMELL THE FOOD!” Then a one minute pasue and the scream ups to “I CAN SMELL THE FOOD BURNING!”Is Kangaroo tail good?