Thanks Linda. :) It's my mother's. She came from and lived in several towns/counties near where old Ohio pottery and glass manufacturers were concentrated. Which is why I suspected an Ohio company. She told me many old pottery, stoneware & pieces were abundant (or used to be) in barns, attics, garages, in her younger years it was everywhere. Some so abundant then, they just sort of took it for granted. She had a lot of old Roseville, McCoy, Imperial Glass etc. but gave a lot away when moving. *whimper* Then when I started collecting she told me how much she regretted not keeping it. Me too! ;) But thankfully there are some remaining, she knew my love of antiques and old things. I'm sure my grandma (her mom) had some too. (Imperial glass in particular.) My mom's pieces have beaded edges & handles, I'll be posting some of those pics later. Glass is so tricky, I really do need to learn how to ID it. I have a compote she gave me years ago, saying it was my paternal grandmother's. Mom always called it 'strawberry glass' but there are no strawberries in the pattern, all I know is it's very old per my mother. I suspected the crock was around turn of century give or take, older than my mom by a generation. So that's why I strongly suspect it came from that area, based on how long she lived there.

Frankly, I don't know WHAT I want, that's the problem. I just want to bake bread. My thanks for the link to the video. It gave me some answers and finally led me to some bread baking blogs that indicated that for good bread I only want steam for about 15 minutes. So, steam injection or just throwing some water in the bottom of the oven at the begiining of baking, which is what I have been doing. Unless someone has other experience, looks like I just need to get a nice oven and do what I have been doing - not chasing after a $4K oven.

A few hints about pizza stones: Keep a scrubpad for use only with the stone. Clean the baking surface of the stone with it and running water only. Never use any kind of soap. Don't soak the stone. The first few pizzas using the stone will probably have an odd tasting dry crust. To avoid this "bake" the stone a few times on its own. You can season and bake the stone with a very light coating of veg oil to lessen this effect and help start the creation of a nonstick coating. Once pizza production starts the seasoning can usually stop. Pizza stones of the $10 type are usually made from compressed sand and are really rugged. I've placed frozen pizzas onto stones at 430F and haven't lost one yet. The secret seems to be get it down fast, flat, and centered to lessen thermal shock. My recipe for a frozen Kraft Delicio. I like them in a pinch because they don't overdo the sauce and toppings so the bread has a chance to become something other than a soggy mess. Also like to pop off the frozen pepperoni and put it back 5 minutes before the finish : Preheat ordinary oven half hour or so 25 to 30 degrees above directions given on pizza box with stone on next to lowest or lowest rack. When ready, quickly open oven, push the frozen pizza so its "front" edge goes nearly to the back edge of the stone and quickly drop it in place it so it is centered, close oven. When the crust and cheese start to darken put the pepperoni back on top and close oven. I like to have it in a ring on a paper plate and quickly upend it so it all falls in a circle about halfway between the center and crust. Leaving the center bare helps the bread in the center to finish rising. If necessary, I use silicone turners to ensure the pizza isn't stuck to the stone when it's time to remove it. Leftover or even made ahead pizza slices quickly reheated in the microwave produce a soft breadlike crust which some folks prefer to the fresh from the oven crustiness. Your results will be unique to your conditions of course. A pizza stone is a very handy item to have around. Good luck!

For stir-frying, burner shape is as important or even more important than burner power. I test drove the Miele and Dacor cooktops as well as the BlueStar rangetop we chose. (Not an apples to apples test but at first I was hesitant to give up the space to a rangetop - then when I found out how much better the BlueStar performed for stir frying I changed my mind.) The 15K BTU burners on our Bluestar that are about the same power as the Miele and Dacor burners stir fry much better because they are much more efficient at delivering heat to the bottom of the wok and they do it very evenly. The 22K BTU burner on our BlueStar is even better. When I tested the Dacor and Miele with a chicken stir fry, I put in half the chicken at a time to sear to not overload it and it still wasn't a perfect sear. When I tested the BlueStar, it was a hot day and my DH had packed the ice chest so carefully that the chicken was mostly frozen when I took it out to start cooking. But if I was going to sacrifice my drawer to the rangetop it better be good so I put in all the chicken at once and the BlueStar immediately had it sizzling and seared perfectly. The food really tasted different cooked on the BlueStar. I highly recommend calling around the appliance stores to see if you can find one with the types of burner you are considering hooked up so you can try a stir fry recipe on the burner. I took the same wok and recipe ingredients to each cooktop/rangetop I was considering and learned a lot by doing that. If Bluestar offered a single burner version of their rangetop, that is what I would recommend to you. If you don't have a chance to do that, what you want to look for is a burner that has a shape to deliver heat efficiently and evenly to the bottom of a wok. An example of a bad type of shape is the sealed burner like on the Dacor and Miele cooktops. These have a flat circular top and flame comes out of the side of the circle. The higher you turn the burner up, the more the flame shoots out to the side; no flame goes up in the center of the burner. An example of a type that works really well for a wok is the BlueStar burner shape where the flame comes straight up out of the burner. The burner shape has a circle of flame at the center of the burner and 8 star rays of flame coming out from that circle. The center grate comes off the burner so that the wok sits right down into the flame and heat is delivered to the whole bottom of the wok. This is very similar to the wok arrangements I saw in China. A friend has the DCS wok burner and that does a very good job. We have the Miele oven. I'm very happy with its cooking performance but I find its controller kind of annoying at times. Its heating is very stable and accurate. It cooks bread well. Things I don't like: Maximum timer setting is 59 minutes and 59 seconds. I'd gladly give up the seconds to have a timer that times longer than an hour. If you put in the time and then forget to hit the button that starts the timer, it waits a bit and then cancels the timer. Too many modes - for example they have a proofing mode that only allows two temps (both higher than I would usually want to proof at) and a defrost mode with a wide range of temps (which is what I use for proofing because I can set it to 80 or 90 degrees). One ends up having to learn little tricks like which baking mode lets you set the temp up to 550 degrees (most of the modes stop at 500). If the BlueStar ovens had been available when we were choosing, I'd have been very tempted to choose them. I'm short and the side opening door would be easier for me. The one downside is that they aren't self-cleaning and I'm rather addicted to not having to clean my oven. How is your breaker box occupancy? Ours is full. If you want to add that other oven at a later date, will you have a 220 V breaker spot open? That might be one reason to choose between gas and electric ovens.