Ok, that was fun. Winemaker brought his 2007 Barbera and 2002 Merlot Reserve. We finished with one of his 1999 Merlots from my basement. Impressive, that '99 spent a few years in a box in my garage - which, even in Northern California, got hot at times, and then has been sitting in my Portland basement. Not proper wine storage at all. But it was excellent. So the wine was great. Dinner was so-so. Sad, but I'm pretty objective about my cooking, and it's true. Someone started a thread asking about ''flops'', so here are a couple. On the good side, the rib eye steaks were very good. Trimmed and salted the meat, stored unwrapped on a rack in the refrigerator, then brought to room temp. Heated cast iron pans dry for five minutes on high flame, then a pat of butter and put the steaks down. About 4 min per side, to deep brown. Pulled them off the pans at 115F then rested them. For service, charred the tops with a torch and melted the tops with bubbling herb butter. They were perfectly medium rare. On the not so good side, the creamed spinach tasted great, with Amaretto, crispy panchetta, deeply browned mushrooms, toasted almonds, butter, cream, and melted Brie cheese. But it wasn't creamy enough. My carbonara was mediocre. SWMBO makes a much better carbonara than I. Her salad was great, which I forgot to mention. My hazelnut ice cream was not good. I tried a different way of making it and also had a problem with the ice cream machine so that it didn't churn properly, tasted good but wrong consistency. Fortunately, Two Guys brought a dessert so full of sherry that my daughter got tipsy. Well, there was plenty of wine and red meat so dinner wasn't a total flop. Now, it's Sunday morning, and on to eat . . . Nothing.

Mtn, for DH and my first married New Year's Eve we had party / retro wine tasting, featuring Annie Green Springs, three kinds of "Ripple"---red, white and pink, MD 2020, Thunderbird, and a few other not-so-choice offerings. An artist friend made lovely illustrated cards on which our guests wrote down their impressions of each drink. The comments were hilarious, one I remember was something like peach, with an undertone of gasoline. It could easily have been gasoline, with an undertone of peach, lol! We served ritz crackers and cans of cheeze whiz (a do it yourself canapé), little smokies sausages and other retro fare. I wore a ruffled apron and we played 60s music on our Pioneer stereo, and a good time was had by all. We were in our mid-twenties and all our grad student friends spent the night on floors and sofas, except the two grown-up guests we invited and who surprised us by coming---the dean of student life at Emory University! Have fun at your party, I am sure it will be a blast!!

To each of you who have commented on this post, I want to thank you. It's been a week since asking the Houzz community what your thoughts, opinions, and preferences were, and you all had truly valuable input. Now that my company has gone, I can get back to becoming an informed consumer. After reading everyone's comments up to this point, here are my thoughts: I agree that there is simply too much differing information on the Internet and that I need to go in to a showroom (or two) with a few pots and pans I use daily and pretend to cook. My first choice would be to do a double wall oven, but though I may be able to do just that, I also would lose valuable real estate, which is why I was mostly decided on a range. I kinda do agree with Jerry when he said that appliances that do more than one function, only do one of them well, so by separating them, you can get the best of each. BTW Jerry, thanks for the pics - I love your Blue Star Wall Oven! Again, I need to go to showrooms, and research there. To those of you who loved their particular range, I have made a list and plan to compare in the showrooms. I do love the browning, faster and more even cooking that a convection oven allows; however, as I often cover food with foil when baking or broiling, I will look in to ovens that can do both. At this moment, I'm on the fence about an induction cook top. Though the greater majority of you preferred it, it rather sounded like a PITA getting the settings just right, and the fact that I'd have to additionally purchase a whole new set of cookware is a negative. Though gas is not nearly as clean or fast as induction, I kinda like being able to see how high or low the flame is - but don't get me wrong, I'm still undecided between the two. I'll make my decision in the showroom! Many of you brought up valuable points to consider that I would never have thought of. This post has been more help to me than all the hours of research on a gazillion sites. Thank you all!

Thanks for the additional info. My son is allergic to tree nuts & peanuts (which includes legumes except green beans and wax beans) so I couldn't use chestnut flour, but I think he had water chestnuts before we knew about his allergies - they might be a vegetable and not a nut? Mentioning the tapioca flour got me thinking - there is a place nearby that sells gluten free rolls made with cassava flour (which is what I think you make tapioca out of?) and they are nut free too - only a few ingredients. I think there is cheese in them, but I think it is cheddar, which my brother can have. I may go buy some of those and leave it up to him if he wants to try one or not. otherwise my nephew that is celiac would eat at least one when I host that side of the family next Saturday. I have bought them for him before, but didn't think about it for my brother - thanks for triggering my memory!