Just emailed my Nashville daughter to see if she has a recommendation. She had tile installed and as far as I know was happy. We're just starting a house South of Nashville so I need the answer to this question, too! I'll let you know . . .

I would look at the Elux, Fisher & Paykel, which is very sleek and a good performer (if you have service in your area), and maybe Bosch. It seems if you're going to consider spending for Thermador, you could almost do Wolf. I love my E-Series. The way they test, and have used the same technology for years makes Wolf the best bet for reliability and ability to last through years of use, IMO...which was my reason for choosing it. Mine was a former display model, so I got it at a clearance price. Those kinds of deals are out there, so don't give up too fast, if it's what you'd want. I had Monogram, and like another forum member, Cotehele, found it to be NOT good at reaching and maintaining accurate temps on a consistent basis. I couldn't count on something getting done in the same way and in the same time as experienced previously...Sometimes they'd take longer, sometimes shorter, sometimes over brown...It was frustrating. The temps varied from one side of the oven to the other. Our ovens were 'working correctly' according to how they were designed/engineered. They bought mine back, but didn't for Cotehele, even though we had the same complaints and were communicating with the same people at GE at the same time...So you can't count on GE for consistency in customer service or their interest in customer satisfaction. I couldn't recommend a Monogram oven to anyone.

I know this is a little late in posting, but I wanted to actually use it for a while before reporting back. We finally got it installed a little over a month ago and I'm so far very happy with it. We got the SHE68T56UC as I couldn't find enough differences with the 800 series that I cared about. It is very quiet, it fits way more stuff than my old dishwasher did, it doesn't dry things quite as good as I would like, but plastics are no different than the old one. The one drawback I do have is that my tall pot doesn't fit unless I rearrange the racks which to me is more of a pain than washing it by hand. Dishes comes out way cleaner and my glasses that had some kind of white haze that I thought was etching are returning to looking clear again. I only switched the dishwasher - not the detergent. It does take about an extra 40 min than my old dishwasher, but it hasn't bothered me as I can fit so much that at times I end up putting some stuff in and running it not completely full as there isn't enough space to fit more plastics for example or glasses in the top and the bottom isn't fully filled. I have yet to be left with anything on the counter to feel like it is taking too long to run so I can load it again. Edit: Forgot to add that I don't pre-wash the dishes except to scrape off large stuff, but DH does pre-wash, although he is starting to come around. So each wash is a mix of the two. Hopefully I can get a chance to test out it with nothing pre-washed at all, but I think it will perform well. I took the wash filter out to clean as the installer said to do it if things started to smell. It didn't smell, but I figured I'd make it a monthly thing just so I it wouldn't get there. There was nothing in the filter so really didn't need to do it. I'm sure as I go along I'll figure out how often it will need to be done. This post was edited by lyfia on Wed, Mar 12, 14 at 12:32

what about dehydrated fruits? Kiwis come to mind for a vibrant green color. Spinach noodles? Bay leaves? Or other dry herbs or spices