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comment by spencerflem
spencerflem  ·  63 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: September 11, 2024

I have a relatively small panasonic toaster oven (too small for a whole frozen pizza, 13" across) and I like it a lot. What does the microwave part add? Or is it more, now you don't need to take up the space of a microwave since you can use it for either.

That sucks about the hornets !! Haven't been stung by one yet and hope it stays that way, it sounds awful





kleinbl00  ·  63 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Is it the super-bitchin' FlashExpress guy? I hear those are super-awesome. I looked at 'em long and hard when it was time to upgrade the last toaster oven that died.

So... I should have known this but I didn't? You can have metal in a microwave oven if it's grounded. Which opens up some possibilities. And I kinda knew this but I forgot, because we had one? Initial microwaves were dumbly expensive because they used to rotate the magnetron, not the food. Drawer microwaves are still expensive because they do.

A "speed oven" is an overhead grilling element, plus a microwave oven, plus a dedicated convection element with blower. Not only that, but it's all linked together in a burn-out schedule like a damn kiln. Not only that, but they've got temperature probes built in.

So while you could put a turkey breast in the microwave to cook the inside, then broil it for two minutes to sear the skin, then bake it for ten minutes to get it fully up to temperature then run five minutes of convection to get it crispy, you could also fold out five large, stab it with your temperature probe and pull up "turkey breast" on your phone and have the gadget do all that shit for you, comparing how the interior temperature is rising compared to its burn-out schedule. Is it going to be better than one you just bake? It bloody well better be is all I'm saying.

Let's be honest. I'm not putting in a goddamn double oven. I'm not giving up counter space to a microwave. I'm not giving up more counter space to a toaster oven. I'm putting in a thirteen thousand dollar stack of Miele because every appliance vendor I've dealt with in the past twenty years has been shit except LG and Miele, and Miele is hella more awesome than LG. And Miele doesn't sell microwaves. They sell speed ovens.

We decided to go induction because it's energy-efficient and cool and we haven't owned anything aluminum or non-stick since Clinton was president. But my wife didn't like the fact that everything lights up red except Samsung, Wolf and Gagganau. And Samsung is Samsung ('nuff said) and Gagganau is Bosch ('nuff said) and Wolf is made in America.

And I had to sit with that for a while.

But you know what? I turned a tiny amount of money into an obscene amount of money and now that I'm spending it, it's all going to

- a crab fisherman

- union electricians

- union HVAC guys

- union plumbers

...in order to restore a pedigreed architectural gem. And if that means I have to cook on boujie appliances... well, wherever the hell you are, _wage, fuck off.

spencerflem  ·  63 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Wasn't trying to say it was extravagant! & Hell yeah, that makes sense. Even without the fancy cooking methods it makes sense as a space saving thing. My parents new place came with something like that, I don't think its a mielei but it has microwave and toaster in one, though of course they also kept their old toaster oven too so it's not really saving that much for them :p

Is the no double oven for style reasons? My parents old place had one of those and mom loved it- small one heats up faster, and having both made holiday cooking a lot easier.

& yup! Its the flash express. Love it for everything, except there's no built in setting for bagels so I have to run it on the 'toast' option twice to get it a good level

kleinbl00  ·  63 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You didn't have to say it was extravagant, my inner monologue says it every other minute. Not gonna lie, I'm having a hard time "arriving" because the inner voice is absolutely calling me a class traitor multiple times a day. It didn't help that my mother (coincidentally) disowned me over email roughly 30 seconds after I found out our offer was accepted.

'cuz it's fuckin' extravagant, dawg. I'm going from this to this without any steps in between. I could buy sixty five of my current microwave for the price of the microwave I'm about to buy. You apply that multiplier to a Honda Civic and you find yourself struggling to even know what cars you can buy for $1.5m. I remember when Veyrons were that much and that was bugshit and we should stop now but I don't think Koenigsegg will sell you anything that cheap.

No double oven because we've never had difficulty managing holidays with only one oven

______________________________________________

Okay, let's have a rich people diversion.

I've got this weird room that used to be a "cabana" or "porch that faces the pool". It got walled in back in '81, then they added a living room in '82, then they added a trophy room (!) to the living room and an office to the living room. Meanwhile their existing dining room became kind of another trophy room and this weird-ass former porch became this no-man's land with two doors in and five doors out and an indoor barbecue that never worked and is also falling over and there's an electrical closet they built a sauna in (a wet sauna!) and there's a weird little powder room off another door and through there is the garage.

Which sucks because it's the geographical and spiritual heart of the house and it deserves better. They put in three ceilings to try and make the room make sense but since there's zero right angles and less symmetry it never worked. Meanwhile I've got this falling-over barbecue with a chimney that's about 12 feet too short to draught and about 15 feet short of code and you can see daylight through one of the cracks so it's got to go? But what to put in its place?

I'd just about settled on "a window and enough of the brick to match the brick on the back side plus I'll build a barbecue into it on the outside to stay true to the idea" but two different architects have gone NANAWALL NANAWALL NANAWALL so you go "wtf is a nanawall" and I say

"a nanawall is the price of a sliding glass door, plus a window, plus twenty five thousand dollars, all so that you can't keep the mosquitos out"

And then you start looking at built-in barbecues (the extravagance!) and discover it's tough to buy one without a rotisserie, and the rotisseries all hold like 40lbs because apparently we're roasting suckling pig now?

________________________________________________________________________

And that's where I went "I'll throw the damn turkey on the rotisserie before I'll buy a double oven and I don't even really want a rotisserie but now I'm intrigued."

veen  ·  61 days ago  ·  link  ·  

What about Siemens? The previous owners graced our kitchen with all-Siemens appliances, including the induction plate. Doesn't light up at all and I have maybe one? gripe with it.

You did get me to wonder what my Siemens oven has that I don't know about... it has a pizza mode, and it has a superspeed heat mode, which leads me to wonder if it secretly also has convection in it or sumthin' because it draws a clean 5-6 kW when I put it in said mode.

kleinbl00  ·  61 days ago  ·  link  ·  

They aren't sold in the US.

American appliances are sized differently. An American oven is typically 30" across, and can be 36." European ovens are 24". Can you buy 24" ovens in the US? Absolutely. They aren't what we're used to over here, though - you need that massive cavity once a year for the turkey because of course you do. American washer/dryers are also sized to do laundry once a week while European/Asian washer/dryers are sized to do laundry more frequently.

uhsguy  ·  61 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The countertop sized steam, convection oven combo that’s built in would be my dream appliance. Barring that a dedicated shelf for one and the actual oven can sit idle for that one time a year you need to cook 3 different things in the oven.

uhsguy  ·  62 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You are going to be so pissed when it breaks and you have to wait weeks to get the Miele tech to come in, tell you that the part you know is broken is actually broken and then come back in 2 weeks with the actual part. All because the assholes won’t selll you parts directly,.

I wanted their dishwasher but I couldn’t handle not being able to order replacement parts and just do the work myself. Getting someone to do any service related task in Seattle is such a pain in the ass and wallet.

kleinbl00  ·  62 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm on year 6 with a Miele dishwasher. I had a Bosch burst into flames, I had another Bosch last 13 months, I had four GE water pumps replaced under warranty in nine months and I've had a Miele that ate a whole goddamn cherry pit and just rattled it around for a week before finally cracking it and spitting it out.

You will not find a single appliance manufacturer whose entire online presence is defined by anything other than all the people who hate them. Meanwhile the conventional wisdom has come around to "things with lots of parts have more parts to break" as if that shit came down the mountain or something.

There are two chaebol appliance manufacturers. One is good, one is terrible. I have four appliances from the former and the one that came with the house from the latter has already failed - Samsung doesn't think that the ability to come back gracefully from a power failure is an essential function for a refrigerator. And there are two family-owned, privately-held appliance manufacturers. One is Miele, the other is Sub Zero-Wolf.

uhsguy  ·  61 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Im actually a Miele fan the dishwasher was fantastic up until it tried to flood out house that happens… What sucks is that they don’t sell parts directly so getting parts is a pain in the ass. Also because of low volume their techs are less available and more expensive.