We don’t have a microwave at our new place. We haven’t missed it yet.
How often do you use your microwave when cooking it on the stovetop or reheating it in the oven or on the grill would have sufficed? Our kitchen is smaller than any kitchen we’ve had with the exception of our first two stints in tiny apartments. This has required better organization and better decision making about what we keep, what we need to buy for the kitchen and in the end, so far we’ve decided not to get a new microwave. Sure, that rush schedule may show up that would have made it convenient, but heating times is tending to be only a few minutes longer in the toaster oven or stove top.
I think that microwaves have become a cultural thing. Sure, there’s convenience, but I think that at some point in time it became an issue of jonesing [definition: to want something to ‘keep up with the Joneses’]. Sure, there are areas of my life where I too long for something completely superficial (yet another guitar, for example), but not the microwave… I’d rather have the new super-deluxe, ultra-amazing fridge-oven that you can program to keep food cool, and then at the set time it starts to heat it so that your turkey can be hot and ready to eat when you get home frum church 🙂 However, I’m not going to part with the $5,000 USD for one 🙂 That’s a major part of our kitchen remodelling budget that doesn’t exist yet.
Wow… I have to give it to you, Randy Flintstone, you’re tougher than I. I have been a microwave chef extraordinaire since I was in grade school. With the exception of fried egg sandwiches and Tuna/Hamburger Helper, I cook EVERYTHING in the microwave. Convenience is part of it, but to me it seems very wasteful to heat up the oven or stove top enough to warm up my Ranch Style Beans ©. Once the beans are ready to eat, the heat from the stove continues to do battle with my air conditioner for a good ten minutes.
Entirely separate from the pseudo-eco-friendly reasons, there’s no way I can re-heat my styrofoam encased left-overs (which constitute a good 40% of my at home meals) using a conventional heating method. Even when I do eat something home cooked, it ends up in plastic-ware that would fare in the oven as well as a snowball in Sheol.
We’ve got a gas stove… it takes all of 2 seconds for the heat to be gone, other than the metal grids that hold the pots over the flame. It’s amazing for a guy who’s pretty much only used heating elements.
I went about 5 years without a microwave so that’s proof that it can be done. However, I’d not do it here in Texas simply because firing up the stove (or heaven forbid, the oven) can turn my little house into a sauna in no time flat. 🙂
Okay, okay, I’ll give you gas… umm… That is to say, I grant that gas stoves are more efficient.