[Sca-cooks] OOP: Stove info wanted

[Philippa Alderton]

--- sjk3 at cornell.edu wrote:

Well, whether you use gas or electric is a personal
preference, but my preference is gas, because you KNOW
whether or not it's on (if the fire is out, but the
burner seeps gas, most modern stoves have a safety
cutoff- often an electric stove burner can be on and
hot enough to burn you, but the heat isn't visible).
It's also easier to tell how high the heat is on,
helping you to avoid burning things. Also, depending
on the stove, if you have a lot of power outages in
the area, it's nice to be able to cook by candlelight
if the power is off. OTOH, that may mean another bill
to pay.

> So what are the features you can't live without, and
> which are a waste of
> money?

1. Stovetop burners
2. Oven

Many of the available options are more or less useful,
depending on what sort of cooking you do. For example,
a stovetop grill is great, if you have the room, and
do a lot of grilling, but an expensive waste if you
don't. A double oven, one up top, one below, is nice
if you do a lot of baking. A convection oven is
helpful if you tend to cook a lot of turkeys or
roasts, but not really much help if all you do is an
occasional cake. Gas with a pilot light is nice if you
want to do a lot of dried foods like jerky, but an
electric stove will require power, and that can be
expensive.

Personally, I think those glass easy care stovetops
are a waste of money. They aren't that easy care if
you burn something on them, and they'll scratch if you
look at them crosseyed.


> Any brands that are particularly reliable?

Most major brands are pretty reliable, and they have
the advantage of being easy to find parts for, if
necessary.

Myself, being constantly broke, I found a used gas
stove that someone was throwing away, and paid a guy
$10 to deliver it. It required cleaning, including a
week outside in the yard to encourage any roaches to
vacate (don't know that it had any, just do that
standard In Case) and a minor repair ( a broken
bracket on the central grill needed replaced by a
creatively twisted piece of coat hanger wire) and it
has been great ever since.

> I don't have a vent/hood, and actually have
> only cooked on a stove
> with one at my parents.  Are they important?  My
> mother swears by it, but
> she doesn't like her house to smell like cooking.
> Peronally, I think
> that's silly, but I don't know what else a hood is
> supposed to be good
> for.

Well, I agree with your mother, if you can set up a
hood that goes outside. The reason being, that if you
burn something, or, like me, have a weakness for
Blackened Cajun, you really want all the smoke to find
somewhere else to be. Good blowers are cheap enough,
that you can get a really powerful one for not much
more than a cheap one costs, and while hopefully you
won't need it often for burned foods, on the few
occasions you do, you'll be glad of it.

> Any information, horror stories, great finds, or
> recommendations would be
> appreciated, no matter how basic "everybody knows
> that" it may be.  I
> really don't know anything, and I'll be stuck with
> my (expensive) purchase
> for a long time, so I want to get it as right as I
> can.  Thanks!

 Another money saving idea, if you aren't as broke as
I am, is to look for sales. I'd assume from what you
said, you don't need a stove in the next 15 minutes,
so if you price them, and set the bulk of the money
aside, you can take advantage of any sales that come
along.

Phlip

=====
Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....

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