We moved to this house a little over four years ago, after pretty much gutting it and starting over. I LOVE many things about my kitchen (the island, the spice pantry, the incredible storage capacity). But I did make a couple of major mistakes, so I want to pass my experience along, just in case it can spare another person from going through what I have. First, though, I have to admit that I may be a little obsessive-compulsive about certain things...I say this in the garden variety sense rather than the clinical sense (ha, ha).
When planning and designing the kitchen, I wanted to have two ovens. It seemed like it would be very handy, for instance, when you want to both bake and broil in the same meal. Or when two things need to go into the oven at very different temperatures. I had a little experience with convection, and was not at all convinced that I would use it. So I sought out conventional ovens, and bought the best double wall ovens that GE made, thinking that the simpler, the better. How wrong I was!
I just counted, and I have baked in over a dozen ovens. Until we moved here, though, they were always in a free-standing range, which turns out to make a difference. The cheaper ones (that hark back to my student days and early married life) were mainly annoying because they heated up the whole kitchen due to poor insulation. I was always able to figure out how to adjust the temperature and baking times, based on my standard chocolate chip cookie recipe. That was a reliable way to know whether I needed to increase or decrease the temperature stated in the recipe. The very best one was a Kitchenaid oven. It was true to temperature and cooked evenly throughout the oven cavity.
So we moved here, and from the beginning, nothing seemed to bake the way it used to. Mostly the oven seemed too slow (cool), although occasionally there would be sudden bursts of heat that would scorch the top of something that wasn't yet cooked in the middle. For the first few months, I chalked it up to the "getting to know you" phase of dealing with a new oven. Finally, after about six months, when I baked au gratin potatoes for a dinner party, and two hours later they still weren't done, I had to acknowledge that there was something wrong with the ovens rather than with me. That started about a two year merry-go-round of service visits to re-calibrate the ovens, with repairmen agreeing that the temperature seemed off, but that it was sort of normal for the temperature to fluctuate. They would patiently explain to me that ovens are NEVER one temperature, but that they FLUCTUATE around a temperature. Duh. However, my ovens fluctuated + or - 50 degrees. Eventually, the GE certified repairman confirmed that, but also that GE considers that to be an acceptable level of fluctuation. OK, fine, it's acceptable for them. But food doesn't really cook well at 295 degrees when 350 is what you're aiming for. Especially if it suddenly spikes up to 405 degrees.
So began my quest for new ovens. I scoured the internet, even sending some queries out into the ether, and eventually settled on the Wolf ovens that I now have and love. I called Wolf before spending an outrageous amount of money on them, and they assured me that their ovens only fluctuate + or - 5 degrees. And do you know what? It's true. Now when I set the oven for 350 degrees, that's pretty much what it is.
Along the way, though, I learned some interesting things. First, is that free-standing ranges have much better insulation, and consequently they hold a temperature better. Second, even if you will never use the convection feature, it is still important to purchase an oven with it, because that's where all of the engineering know-how has gone for the past twenty years. They're just better ovens. They treat their non-convection brethren like long-lost relatives they're ashamed of. Third, you should remove any racks from the oven that you are not using because the racks affect how the heat is distributed in the oven cavity. Most of the time, you will be baking with only one rack. I know that they say you can cook two batches of cookies at the same time, but my experience has been that it will interfere with the heat flow both because of the second rack and because of the second baking sheet. Besides, how long does it take to bake a batch of cookies? 8 to 10 minutes, right? So it'll take twice as long. Big deal.
If I had an absolutely blank palette to create a kitchen now, I think I would start with a huge Wolf free-standing range with a double oven. They're gigantic. But think of all the burners and doodads you could have on top! Then I would design the kitchen around it, with lots of counter space (quartz, not granite, so it would never need to be sealed), and I'd reproduce my storage space and spice cabinet. And I'd make sure to have two dishwashers (I LOVE my Bosch). It will probably never happen, but perhaps there is one person out there who will have that opportunity....
The second major appliance that I have been deeply disappointed in is the energy-efficient Whirlpool front-loading washing machine. Part of the problem may have been that I bought the storage drawer for it to sit on, elevating it to a convenient height, but also introducing more rotational movement (apparently), since it has been trying to escape for the past four years. At times, it can make it half way across the laundry room in a week. It also sounds like a jet engine warming up. And it does NOT get the clothes clean. If I get any kind of food stain on my clothes (and trust me that is almost a daily event), I will end up pre-treating and soaking, which would seem to me to undermine the energy and water-saving features of this type of machine. AND it takes almost an hour to do one load. Then it takes another hour or so to dry them. Three loads of laundry can take most of a day. And there is a persistent and evil mold growing around the rubber gasket around the door, so nothing smells clean about it.
The dealer and I have had many fascinating meetings over this machine as well. They insist that most other people do not have the same complaints that I do. Does that mean they never get stains on their clothes? They suggested special shock absorbers to keep it from walking, but MY washer walked right off of them! They insisted that the incredible shaking, shuddering, and gyrating was because the floor tile was "too expensive." They claimed to find nothing wrong with the balance.
Then, yesterday morning, in the middle of a load of towels, the machine seized up and made a whole new set of horrifying sounds, which I think was whatever had been loose before, coming unhinged. So I turned it off, removed the towels, and with a sigh of relief, started researching a new washer. It turns out that there are an army of folks like me who have been underwhelmed with the front-loaders, with their fancy electronic displays and special products to try to get rid of the foul odor.
After an entertaining afternoon on the internet, I decided to go back to the past. In 1986, I bought a Maytag washer. That was back when they were made out of metal and had rotary dials. It lasted almost 20 years with perhaps one repair. It was quick, it got clothes clean, and it was possible to keep it clean. I replaced it with another Maytag, but by the 2000s, the machines were being made out of plastic in China. Enough said. My research led me to the Speed Queen top-loader, the same folks who make the ones in laundromats around the country. They're a little more expensive than some, but they're made out of stainless steel and porcelain, and come with a 3 year warranty. The wash cycle takes 30 minutes, and drying time is decreased because the spin cycle is more effective. It's being delivered next week, and Steve is threatening to move the Whirlpool to the front lawn to use as a planter with a sign on it that says, "This is what this is good for."
September 21: On Wednesday, my new washer arrived. There's nothing fancy about it, but it does have variable levels of water depending on the size of the load, and it does only take 30 minutes. I went to work on some of the (many) old stains and they're already mostly gone. The machine isn't chic nor do they come in colors ("You can have any color you want as long as it's white," is their motto). It makes a little noise, but can't even come close to the old Whirlpool. So I'm satisfied.
The moral to this little tale is, you have to be very careful when buying appliances these days. Gone are the days when a brand like GE or Whirlpool stands for anything. We used to rely on Consumer Reports, but we no longer subscribe because we've gotten burned so many times, and have disagreed with their evaluations. The local appliance dealers haven't been much help. They're limited by the brands they carry, and they're invested in selling, not giving an honest assessment. Sometimes the repair department can be helpful, at least in identifying which brands and models have the most frequent requests for repairs. But more often, I just do an internet search and start to read until a consensus starts to form (at least in my mind). I'll type in something like "best wall ovens" or "best washing machine," and start reading. It's kind of amusing, because the people most likely to write reviews are those with strong opinions, and some of them are quite eloquent.
The other point is that it is all too easy to blame yourself when you don't get a good result: I must not have read the directions, maybe I didn't preheat the oven long enough, maybe I'm using the wrong laundry detergent, etc. But sometimes, it really is the equipment, not the user, despite what the repair technicians may say. So if you find yourself questioning which it is, I encourage you to problem-solve as much as you can, then go on the internet and see what other people are saying. I have no regrets about replacing either the ovens or the washer, because the stress they were causing far outweighed the cost, and because there really did not seem to be a remedy for either problem. Better yet would be to have done much more careful research at the outset, which is the message that I leave you with.
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