| Issue #27, September 29, 2006 |
The Hottest Thing in the Kitchen
Buying a new stove for your home is a big decision. It is hard to decide whether to choose electric or gas, big or small, grill or no grill. It can be a struggle, especially if you haven’t been working in the kitchen of a restaurant for the past twenty years. For most people, a stove is a stove. But ask a top chef how he feels about his stove, and he always has the best. This is because your stove can make a real difference in the quality of your cooking and the amount you can accomplish.
If you want to get the high class kitchen look, you are going to want to go for a six or more burner stove with a convection oven. These are the stoves that you see in cooking shows, designed with a shiny, silver, stainless steel appearance.
Deciding to purchase a stove is usually the aftermath of deciding to renovate your kitchen or replace an already existing stove that no longer looks cool, meets your culinary cooking skills, or simply doesn’t work any more. When purchasing a new stove, the first thing that you should be thinking about is how much space is available and whether or not there is a gas line available in that space.
You also are going to want to consider your cooking needs when purchasing a new stove. Do you normally cook for a large group? Or do you need to cook only for a few people? Do you cook a lot of pasta? If you do, then you are going to want to get a stove that can reach 15,000 BTUs so that water can start boiling faster. If you make a lot of sauces, you’ll want to make sure that your burners can go as low as 150 BTUs.
It is better to go for a gas powered stove than an electric one if you have a gas line already in place. You can see the flame and can instantly turn it on or off, which adds to convenience and cooking capability. If you go electric, the coils are about $200 cheaper than those smooth ceramic glass tops.
If you are looking for your basic oven and stove with self-cleaning functions, you are going to spend between $400 and $700. Models with more features and style go up to about $1,500 and if you want the super cool, ultimate stove with features like a grill, high heat burners and a convection oven in a stainless steel body price can go up to about $5,000.
Good stoves are made by GE, Whirlpool and Maytag. GE is an especially good brand if you are looking for a more basic stove for your home. The company has been in the stove business for a long time and offers almost any type of stove with features that will make your head spin. If you want to go high-end, Viking is a very good choice is Thermador Pro Grand. These are the stoves that are above the $4,000 range, but if you can really get into it, they are a lot of fun to have in your home. Plus, if you are going to have an executive chef over for dinner, or if you hire a personal chef, he’ll be in culinary heaven when he sees one of these bad boys lined up in your kitchen and will surely make you a masterpiece of a meal.
–David Lion Rattiner
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