"stoves" news and stories

I cook on a 41-year-old turquoise electric stove. While it has a certain amount of retro appeal, it has many features that render it an total pain in the tuckus. Chief among the frustrations is the fact that the oven hovers a mere 13 and a half inches above the rear burners. This means that if you have stuff on the front burners, you can basically forget about using the rear ones. This is why I often find myself with lust in my heart for the stoves that other people get to cook on. I'm particularly jealous of my friend Jamie's stove, which is hulking stainless steel gas-powered monster with five burners and a double oven.

Over on the Epi-Log, cookbook author Melissa Clark has announced to the foodie world that she is in the market for a new stove, and she's asking people to send in their recommendations. Since reading her post, I've found myself shopping online for potential stoves for her kitchen, living vicariously through her impending new stove purchase. If you have a stove you love (or one you hate), feel free to weigh in on the discussion over at the Epi-log or here in the comments. Because there's nothing that generates more intense feelings of passion than a cook's relationship with their stove.

I just moved from a suburban apartment with a large kitchen to a big city studio apartment with no counter space at all. I have one little block of counter space, but if I put a microwave there, I'll have no space at all to prepare food, cut food, rest dishes and other items before I serve them, or store stuff you usually keep on a counter, like canisters or a cutting board or a can opener or whatever. And there's no room for one of those microwaves that hang from above.

So what are my options? In this day of microwave frozen meals and quick dinners made on the fly, can I really go back to 1978 and do completely without a microwave and just cook in the oven again? I've gotten so used to a microwave - I think we all have - and I'm not sure I can go back. I guess I could buy one and just keep plugging it in and unplugging it after I use it and store it in the bottom cabinet.

Anyone else have this apartment problem or decide to go microwave-less?