[Sca-cooks] OOP: Stove info wanted

[A F Murphy]

All of my burners are like this! And I can, if I want, put the center up
high, which is handy for small pots.

The stove is probably from the 1950's. My mom's stove, about the same
age, has the same feature, with one burner in the back you can
theoretically set for a certain temperature, designed especially for
long simmers. By the time I was cooking regularly on that stove, this
feature didn't work that well. But I can and do set a very slow simmer
on my stove with no problem.

I admit, the stove in my old apartment couldn't be reliably set as low.
I mean, I could set it low, but not steady. I'd still rather have that
than electric, though. I started everyday cooking on an electric stove.
I'd bring something to a boil, and try to turn down the heat, and it
would boil over... or things would burn, or... I hate not being able to
control heat at once!

That said, I do like the electric oven. My Perfect Kitchen (which I will
never have!) would be a gas range and an electric wall oven. I almost
never have cause to use the broiler, and it is down around my ankles,
and between one thing and another, I never use it at all, because it is
too much of a nuisance. The electric one I could broil in the oven, and
use it just to top brown, or finish something off, and it was simple,
and I probably used the broiler as much that year as I have in the 23
years since!

Oh, self cleaning is a nice dream, too. That wasn't an issue for years,
when all I really did was bake bread, but lately I've roasted meat a few
times, and... I have to get better at cleaning ovens!

I had a hood in one apartment, where I lived for about a year and a
half. I liked it. For one thing, it gave me a light right over the
stove... that was nice! And I could turn the fan on when I fried
something, which was good, because I had an extraordinarily sensitive
smoke detector. I swear it went off if I browned butter!

Anne

Edouard de Bruyerecourt wrote:

>
>
>The old gas range had one special burner on the back, with a double gas
>head. Normally, gas came out both the normal size head and the smaller
>inside head, which fed off the line first. When you turned the gas down
>low, any gas coming through the line was consumed by the inner head
>first, so only it burned with six little flames. Perfect for simmering.
>
>