Kitchen remodel, day… somethingsomething

Today my stove and dishwasher arrived. I wired up the stove’s power cord and found that I need to properly level it before it’ll slide in and I was worried about damaging my cabinets, so I decided to wait for the contractor to be able to take care of it. But I did at least get a chance to try it out with my cast-iron pan (affiliated link). It’s pretty quiet, and gives much better temperature control than the induction hotplate (affiliated link) I’ve been using in the meantime; the Max Burton seems to be like… low hot HOT HOTTT HOTTTTTT!!!! HOTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!! PLASMABALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and then there’s 5 more heat settings. This one isn’t like that.

It also has a nice feature I didn’t know about: three of the four “burners” (I guess “elements” is a better term in general) are size-adaptive, and will work with any size pot. The fourth one is also size-adaptive but its maximum size is fairly small. But, yay, nice to not have to think about which pot goes where based on its size.

I don’t remember if this is a real product or just something from a “the kitchen of THE FUTURE!!!” thing, but I remember seeing some sort of induction-based surface where it was covered in a bunch of micro-elements and it would just define virtual “burners” by setting pots down on them, with some funky mechanism for setting the heat. Seems unwieldy, but it’d be cool to have a fifth burner in the middle or something. But I hardly ever use more than two burners at once anyway, but it’d be neat. (There are of course plenty of 5-burner cooktops on the market, but they’re expensive and built-ins.) Anyway if it ever comes up I always have my portable burner anyway.

I’d forgotten how vaguely annoying touchpanel controls are on a stove though. It’s nice to just have, like, a knob to turn. But I’ll get used to this again, just as I got used to it on my previous induction stove. (And on the Max Burton hotplate, for that matter, but that uses tactile buttons which feel better than capacitive touch panel ones.)

Anyway. I asked the contractor if he’d be available to do the pre-countertop finish work and appliance install this weekend and unfortunately he isn’t, and neither are his crew members. So I’ll have to wait until Monday. Not the worst delay by any means but jeeze, now I have basically no floor space in my kitchen and can barely even access my refrigerator. Guess I’m eating out all weekend.

Well, whatever. The end is in sight, barring some major catastrophe.

Oh also I am really loving cooking with cast iron and I have no idea why it took me this long to finally get a pan. I used to have a cast-iron wok, but I hardly ever used it and ended up giving it to my sister. But having a real cast-iron skillet is so great. So for now I have no interest in getting a hard-anodized induction-compatible skillet to replace my crappy aluminum ones.

I was also debating whether to get an induction adapter plate for my pressure cooker (which I hardly ever use), upgrade to an induction-compatible pressure cooker (which I would hardly ever use), or get rid of my pressure cooker entirely (since I never use it). Then I realized that my pressure cooker is slightly smaller than the cast-iron skillet, and would also fit in any number of my other skillets anyway, and I can just use that as an adapter plate. So then I figured the only piece of cookware that I might not be able to keep using is the stovetop smoker, which I also hardly ever use (seeing a trend here?) since I use a cold-smoking wand now (it’s way easier to control and IMO does a better job of infusing the food with smoke flavor).

But then I just checked the product listing for my pressure cooker and it turns out it’s already induction-compatible anyway wow it’s almost as if past-fluffy already thought of this and had upgraded to an induction-compatible one, oh yeah maybe that’s why I vividly remember giving one away back in San Francisco, you think?

And the stovetop smoker turns out to be (even though it’s not an advertised feature) since it happens to be made of ferromagnetic stainless steel. So, yay, if I ever feel like using it again. (I might still just get rid of it on general principle though. Although jeeze, did I really pay $45 for it?)

… oh wow the order where I bought that smoker and also the Max Burton hotplate is also the order when I bought all my centrifuge parts. Speaking of stuff in my kitchen that I never heckin' use.

I might have a problem, y'all.

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