Ovens

You may possibly remember (although you probably don't!) that our wall oven died on us last January, just before we were due to head to Singapore, thence Melbourne and Japan.  We decided that we wouldn't replace it at the time, given that we were about to disappear for a month, so bought a little bench-top oven and made do with that.

While we were away we decided that if we were going to buy a new oven, we would save up and buy a proper, nice double oven.  The Builder would make adjustments to the cupboard the oven sits in so it would fit.  And from time to time we would look at ovens in shops or online.  And we would ponder.

In the meantime, of course, we got used to living with a mini-oven, frustratingly slow though it could be at times.

Then we realised that Christmas was just around the corner.  The mini-oven almost certainly wouldn't do for showcase Christmas cooking.  So we griddled our lions, amassed what money we had in one place and went to Curry's this morning to sort out our oven.

We couldn't have our first choice.  Not only were there none in store for us to take home, but there were also none available for delivery in the foreseeable future :-S  So we decided to go for our second choice.  None available in store for that, either, but at least we could have one delivered in a week or two. That will do.

I was just about to pay for it when the lady said: "I assume you have an electrician on standby to fit your new oven?"  We assured her that no electrician would be needed.  The cabinet for the oven would need adjustment, but The Builder could do that, and we already had an electrical socket to plug it into, where the previous oven had been.

She looked at us.  "Oh no," she said.  "You can't plug in a double oven.  The voltage is too great.  You need to have it hard-wired in by an electrician."

That won't do.  In order to have it hard wired, we will need to have the whole of the downstairs rewired, in which case we might just as well have the whole place done properly.  And if we were going to do that, we would have had one or two of the overhead lights moved, and have sorted out the various odd socket locations and removed some switches that don't seem to have any particular purpose.  It would be a massive and very expensive undertaking.  Not one that we have budgeted for, not one that we have saved for - not even one that is high on our priority list of things to do. No double oven for us, then.

So we bought this instead

The Builder installed it with almost no fuss and it now has a piece of pork shoulder slow roasting in it.  I'm going to make some cupcakes as well - the little oven makes nice cakes but my 12 space cupcake tin won't fit in it. New ovens take a bit of getting used to so I need to practise and play with it.  So far it seems to be quite effective.  But really, there was no need for all this waiting, saving and making do.  If we had only known that double ovens couldn't be plugged in to a socket --- we could have bought this back in March!!

(But as several people have pointed out, we do now, effectively, have a double oven with this and the mini-oven combined.  And we have a bit of money sitting by to kick start our next project.  Shall we have the wood burner or the dropped kerb done next, do you reckon?)