SC - qatâif project delayed

[H B]

Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com> wrote:
>I have been working on this all weekend, trying to figure out 
>the best recipes for the flat bread and for the noodles.  I had
>assembled all the ingredients, only to discover that my stove/ovens 
>is almost completely dead.  They are too young to die!  Only 20 
>years old!  Sigh!  I have called the gas company and had a
>technician in to look at my stove.  He says that both of the pilot
>light electric igniters have failed. (There are two of them. One 
>for each stove.) Each part is about $150 a piece according to this
>man, not counting labor.  So now I have to either find a reputable
>repairman to do the work or decide if it would be better to replace 
>the stove.  Sigh!

If you actually like your current equipment, it's in overall good shape
(nothing else expensive likely to go), and it's old enough not to be
too complex, I'd say repair. New everythings these days have so many
'convenience' features that are electronically controlled that repair
becomes even more expensive; it's now a 'module' that you replace, and
you can't tinker with anything anymore.  While it sounds like yours
suffer from this somewhat, I think it's only getting worse.

And while I'm sure most on this list would be more inclined to choose
gas than electric in a new stove anyway, let me mention a few
less-obvious reasons NOT to get one of those sexy-looking one-piece
sealed electric stovetops (by which both my sister and my mother were
seduced):

1) not really much easier to clean; stuff gets burned onto them easily
(though it will hold an entire quart of something hot that you've
spilled inside its sealed rim -- if you've ever done that);
2) many types of cookware are not recommended for use on them, like
cast iron, glass, anything hard enough to scratch it and therefore
create a thermal stress point;
3) any cookware you have that is not PERFECTLY FLAT on bottom (and
you'd be surprised -- get out a straight-edge and check) will heat much
more unevenly, since the heat is conductive rather than radiant, and is
for that reason not good for the cooktop, either;
4) for above reason, cooking with a wok or anything else that doesn't
have full contact with the stovetop is right out; in fact, cookware
that is even more than 1/2" to 1" bigger or smaller than the burner
outline creates excess thermal stess, and a friend's aunt really did
crack the whole blasted top by using a canner that was too big on hers
(very expensive to replace);
5) the 'momentum' factor of electric-vs-gas seems to be even worse with
these (VERY slow to heat up, VERY slow to cool down once you cranked it
up to max in frustration);
6) when not in use, the flat plane makes a convenient additional
counter area (can be a problem, especially if you've forgotten to check
if the stovetop is still hot!).

Of course, they may be working on some of these problems in newer
models.  Consumer Reports Magazine said in their review a few months
ago that they've gotten better on the momentum thing, and they didn't
mention any of these other things, so either they've fixed them of the
CR testers didn't really use them enough to run across them.  And
neither my mother or sister seem to hate them as much as I do, so
either I'm too picky or they've gotten used to dealing with these
problems.

- -- Harriet


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