Re the GE linked: They do well on this kind of thing and the good reviews on Amazon appear to be real users, IMO. It's in no way offensive looking and function is first in choosing apliances. I'd say go for it and tell Ms. MBO that you'd never leave her without a microwave, and get the brownie points. You don't have to admit it was fear she'd go medieval on you that prompted it unless she asks.

The Breville user ratings on Amazon aren't great and not what I expect from Breville, beauty be danged. I know only a few companies make the actual microwave bits, and most nowadays are from one Chinese maker. Some build the units, others have the makers use their designs and badges. I wouldn't pay 250% to get something less well regarded, especially if they have the same guts!

Get a basic one, like the GE, and take a long, deep breath. If you find your dream appliance and want to build it in a bump-out (do check local code!), you can do that, but better to finish the kitchen, with that potential in mind, than to wallow in delays and change orders (even if you're the fellow being ordered) now. The GE isn't so pricey that it'll be a great loss if you send it to college after you find your golden slipper.

Re the Breville Pro TO, I toasted some fresh jalapeño-zucchini yeast bread today (tasty and green, but not spicy). Also on full dark 7 and timer 4. It looked blond when it dinged (green-blonde), but it tasted like toast and was plenty hot to melt cold butter. And the crust was crunchy but not overwhelming. I didn't need to pre-dry the bread or anything. But it was too thick for the cute toaster. I'm thinking the BPro is staying...

SWMBO pointed out it was Prime Day, so I bought the GE!

And of course then I noticed the Hamilton Beach 31156 which is a small TO with two top slots to toast individual bread slices and ties (with Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro BOV900BSSUSC) for top score in Consumer Reports' toaster oven test.

The profusion of consumer choices is ridiculous. It is turning me into a shopping head case, all emotion and mood swing, impulse and indecision. I mean, this TO selection is harder than my actual job.

Re the Breville, you have certainly put it through demanding tests and my impression is that it has done as well as any TO would and probably better than most. After this extended co-habitation, it sounds like you are ready to tie the knot. Its so nice to see everything working out. I'm sure BPro is working on its vows - "I promise to roast, toast, broil, and toil" - and what will yours be? "I promise to not 'send you to college' "?

Can you just imagine the 19-year-old taking the BPro as his carry on?

I'm not ready to tie the knot, but the more recent (perhaps weather related) toasting success and previous air fried shrimp, make it a suitable candidate for cohabitation. For now. :)

I get it about being overwhelmed by the choices, but you made the right one. The GE will be at the very least adequate, and it's a MICROWAVE.

The HB having two toaster slots means it admits it can't even toast right in the oven part. My '80's toaster oven toaster, similar size, toasted toast just right, did cheese toast, and other melty things, and was all around a good little appliance. I've seen TO's with two regular sized toast slots on the side and a coffee warmer on top and stuff like that, where it's just three different things glommed together to be counter friendly and make sure you won't blow the circuit with all the functions the way you might if they were separate.

The HB makes you choose between toaster and oven (maybe the others do too), and the bottom of the toaster, ceiling of oven comes down while it's toasting. Not a felicitous design! So it's not like you're baking the egg casserole and toasting the bread at the same time. Maybe it's a way of giving you actual toast because they can't make the oven part both toast and oven cook, so just kind of married the two. Which is great for the price, which is, I'm sure, the origin of the good ratings. It has none of the features you asked for, however, and you even said good toast wasn't any priority.

That said, CONGRATULATIONS! The GE is a mini-oven for you, a MW for Mrs. Liu, and a convection oven and an air fryer for modernity. Is it the best ever imaginable imaginable in the space required? No. Is it good enough to stop worrying about it for the near future? Absolutely!

Accept it! It's ordered and it'll be fine. It's not another mistake, even if it ends up just okay. Stop looking at other people's children and confusing the fairies in your own garden! Tick it off your check list and move on. Use the money you saved to take your family out for ice cream. And maybe, just maybe, the new TO will make baked Alaska.

I knew this was a good place to come for therapy. Aaahhh, I feel better.

What transpired this weekend was, and she would agree, mostly DD’s fault. The moment her eyes fell upon Giselle, DD exclaimed ” she’s so beautiful!” and then “I’m in love!”.

This was unexpected as DD loathes things with plastic faces, digital displays, WiFi, and apps. But love at first sight it was, so any chance of returning the Anova Precision Cooker went poof. We call her ”Giselle”, a name DD considers fit for the supermodel she pronounced the APO to be.

I made a shelf just for Giselle in the Magic Corner, a penthouse condo with a comfy bed and window view far above the hoi polloi, from which Giselle does not wake for less than $15,000. Only have $10,000? Get a less super model, maybe Linda. You want Giselle to get out of bed and into the tub to deliver a smoking hot sous vide in a steamy bath? Fifteen gees. And she’ll cook!

Supermodels need assistants - to do the microwaving and such - and hers will live downstairs from Giselle’s penthouse. On the counter. If she’ll fit. If not . . . there are slimmer assistants.

So far, Giselle has made . . . toast. Not quickly. But what toast!

Lovely story, but the photos are confusing! Captions please?

I didn't realize you weren't able to cancel the cooker, but I'm sure the GE's MW will be useful and keep you from losing your skin most painfully. But, really, is Giselle on long term contract? Or will she abandon the high life to go adventuring with the offspring?

We all remember, even if some of us prefer to forget, the 1990s when George Michael’s ”Freedom 90” video catapulted the top models of the day from exclusive fashion runways to MTV and thence to popular culture, creating the Supermodel.

Cindy Crawford, one of the “Big Six” models of the era, most of whom starred in Michael’s comeback (and coming out) video, is shown in a steamy sous vide bath as Michael’s leather jacket from his “Wham!” days burns likes toast and Michael, who pointedly never appeared in the video, sings “some mistakes are built to last” and symbolically burns his bridges with the artificial persona of his early stardom.

https://youtu.be/diYAc7gB-0A

Linda Evangelista, who famously joked that she didn’t wake up for less than $10,000, opens the video, followed by Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Tatjana Patitiz, and then Crawford. To star in the video, they were each paid $15,000 per day. Not sure what the male models were paid, no-one even remembers who they were

I can return the APO for 100 days, use or not, no questions asked. But when a supermodel makes you perfect toast and, tonight, meatballs, would you really ship her back? Look, Giselle looks so sad. And DD says ”no!”

Yes, I think I can fit the GE under Giselle’s shelf.

Perfect toast??? Whaaaaa! Green eyes and all....

Perfect toast seems to involve 350F convection plus 50% steam. I guess the steam keeps the inside from drying out? Time is a little hard to figure out, depends on whether you start with a cold oven or a pre-heated one. I got lucky the first time; now experimenting.

SWMBO has thrown a monkey wrench into matters. She says we only use a microwave for reheating coffee, tea, and leftovers, not for cooking, so she does not want her microwave in the Magic Corner. "The best-laid plans . . ." I will now improvise.

Thank-you! My bread is usually too moist for the BPro. Green eyes have gone back to looking pretty rather than staring accusingly from my reflection.

As to geography, it's probably a good thing. You liked standing in the magic corner. You don't want to be three around the stove and have a filterless elder elbowing in to warm up a mug of tea! Having MW/snack-ovening in a different location is an excellent idea, now that the wise winds of fate have given you two appliances. Perhaps ithe GE could cozy up to the coffee machine? The stainless is saying, ”Hey, I'm no supermodel, but I got the dress code!”

Yes, I think you and SWMBO are right. I could do a "beverage station" as far away from the Magic Corner as possible, meaning at the other end of the base cabinet run. It could consist of hot water kettle, microwave, French press, teapot, etc. All of this would be on a shelf - I am becoming a right martinet about keeping the counters clear.

Green eyes - I wish I had green eyes. But it might look a little creepy.

LOL! The green eyes go with the freckles and red hair. But if you want them you could try green contacts for Halloween, when creepy is called for, and see how you like it.

The beverage station sounds very useful! And on a shelf does too. Or two shelves--one for apparatuses and a shelf above with a twee rail for containing lovely cups.

Giselle got out of bed, pouted expensively, and made some beef flanken short ribs. First 350F convection full steam 10 min, then dry, rub, lightly sauce and 425F broil no steam 3 min. Very promising. The steam seemed to keep the ribs moister. I think next time we’ll try lower temp longer time for the cook-steam stage, then experiment with broil-steam stage.

Rabbit hole of eye color. Green seems to be the rarest eye color, brown the most common, then hazel, and blue. Among Asians, anything but brown is very unusual. Apparently all blue eyed persons can be traced to one person, believed to have lived somewhere around the Black Sea many millenia ago, with a mutation in a gene that promotes melanin, the substance that makes brown eyes brown. Environment also played a role, as melanin-light eyes were disadvantaged in sunnier (more Southern) climates but not in grayer (more Northern) climates. I guess Before Sunglasses, light colored eyes could have affected survival or at least reproduction? Thank goodness for Vuarnets. Today, eye color distribution varies widely by region. I have never seen a Chinese adult with other than brown eyes, although I read they exist, in the 1 percent range. What with conformity and social norms, they probably wear sunglasses at night. Like the Blues Brothers.

https://www.healthline.com/health/eye-health/eye-color-percentages#determining-eye-color

I went looking for photos of Asians with green eyes, but AI is already polluting the image stream. Hate that stuff.

Giselle needs sunglasses. I shall have to prop some on her shelf.

Literal sunglasses? or some kind of cooking tool?

I realize the original mutation you were talking about was way way long ago, but my near progenitors come from the general region of the Black Sea and points not so far. I do know that normal coloring all over the world is darker skin, hair and eyes, with plenty of melanin. My melanin is literally spotty. ;) But that's the fun of modern cosmetic innovations. You can have green (or werewolf!) eyes if you want them. Or go blond, or have glitter nails (though the last isn't really a good look for a grown man barring indulgence of winsome granddaughters).

So, I don't know the whole supermodel history you were referring to, but as I understand it, models tend to dress simply when not ”on”, so perhaps your Giselle needs no embellishment. She seems to be doing a great job, which makes her the opposite of a poser.

The Hamilton Beach combo toaster/oven is going to college.

It is a clever little machine. Slide the lever to ”oven”, and it works like a basic old-school TO.

It is a small oven, good for little jobs, not something anyone is going to use for a roaster chicken or whole pizza unless they are adorable little mini chickens and baby pizzas - or parts and slices.

Before TOs raised their prices to $500 and developed “countertop oven” ambitions, this is what toaster ovens were, and it’ll be just fine for DS.

Slide it to “Toast”, and the toast slot opens. It is wide and long, can do bagels, big sourdough slices, etc.

The toasting performance is “good”; slight uneveness of browning holds it back from ”very good”, but the speed to browning makes it a better experience than typical TO toasting which I rate ”fair”.

DS wanted a toaster more than an oven, so he is thrilled. Well, as thrilled as a normal person gets about such things.

Meanwhile, my new obsession for small cute cooking devices has landed on the venerable, 80’s-chic Panasonic FlashXpress. I’m told that everyone who has lived in Japan knows this machine, and my former expat friends brought theirs home. I recall it was a fast, convenient way to bake and broil small things quickly - Oysters Rockfeller for two, perhaps.

Here it is in black. An assistant for Giselle, perhaps? I wonder, if I get a JDM version, will the legends be in kanji? That would be cool.

Is it a microwave? And if not, does Giselle need an assistant with that lovely range right there? Or are we preparing funky foreign appliances for when mini-MBO runs off with Giselle to post-college?

Glad mini-Liu likes the HB, and can have it at college! There aforementioned 19-year-old can't really take the BPro...

Giselle is, well, a supermodel. She needs to wake up, stretch her long limbs, brush her glorious mane, and do all the pre-heating thing. Then she cooks like a bolt of Zeus’ lightning.

Astro Boy or Speed Racer or whatever name fits would be for the insta-wake, quick little jobs that only need a Bic lighter.

So, you're going from must have one single little appliance that can do it all, to a supermodel who hates to get out of bed, a supercilious barista and a zippy dogsbody who does all the work and gets no credit? One ring to rule them all and a small army to kibbitz?

Supermodels always collect a tail of hangers-on!

Our coastal trip was fun. DS’ GF has never had oysters, clams, or other shellfish! Apparently her dad is allergic to the stuff. So we stopped at every likely place along the spit to feed her fried clams, chowder, oysters, etc. Couldn’t find crabs so that remains to be done.

We found the tsunami evacuation routes on the spit, they led to ridges that were all of 30 feet elevation, and would be inundated along with the rest of the spit. I guess it’s just to give people something to do, while waiting to die. I was relieved when we got back to higher ground.

Turns out a lot of cranberries are grown on the spit. We visited a cranberry farm, had cranberry ice cream while walking around the bogs, one eye nervously watching westward. Here is a bog ready for wet harvesting. It’s really pretty!

We drove back from the coast this evening, in horrid rain. Experienced several moments of hydroplaning, something I haven’t had happen in decades. It was an anxious drive home. This week, SWMBO’s car is getting new tires. This is unacceptable.

At home, I cooked some chicken breast for DD’s Mama Leone’s soup, using Giselle’s temp probe. Dry rub, 350F, target 150F, 75% steam. Undercooking a bit since the chicken will be diced and cooked further in the soup. Worked well!

Well, at least Giselle does her job once you coax her out of bed!

Scary about the water! I have the luxury most of the time, nowadys, to stay home if it rains, but I remember hydroplaning at speed on the freeway. YIKES! New tires soud good.

So the GF liked the seafood? It must have been fun showing her the shells, though sad that the best crab wasn't in. Of course, the last time I saw the price of dungeness crab, it was Halloween worthy.

Giselle made us crostini tonight, to go with soup.

425F, 6 min, 50% steam - but they were done by the time Giselle had preheated to 390F. For repeatability, I think I will start putting food in only after she has preheated. Otherwise recipes will not be consistent.

The GF seemed to like steamed clams and raw oysters, which is promising. Yes, crab is so expensive. We traditionally have a big cracked crab feed at Christmas, I go to the Asian seafood place and get nine or ten live dungeness crabs, and yikes! Anyway, next time she’s here I’ll make her crab cakes. Oh, she needs to be introduced to mussels, scallops, lobster, langostini, etc, as well.

Oooo oooo

https://www.panasonic.com/ca/consumer/home-appliances/combination-ovens/nn-cs89lb.html

A countertop convection + steam + microwave oven with supermodelish looks and no turntable.

Seems not offered in the US but the link above is Panasonic Canada so one could perhaps get it from there. The price shown is in CAD.

Lacks the sous vide, probe, and app of the Anova 1.0 - I don’t know what the 2.0 is like.

Have you still not provided a microwave to the missus? This is a looker, but more of a poser than a pro. You're too much of a cook. 2.0 is AI driven. Anova actually cites food nerds operating ver. 1. You don't need that, but if you want a pal for Giselle…

But, how many ovens does that make now? You started by wanting just one beyond the range… (Says she with four built-in if you include the warming drawer…)

I kept our original microwave, which is an odd little Whirlpool that looks kind of like an 1980's TV set and is just large enough for a plate or coffee cup. SWMBO expressed her opinions and that was that.

I'm still planning to get the Panasonic FlashXpress as Giselle's assistant/dogsbody. My attempt to save $25 by purchasing a non-working Sunbeam Radiant toaster on eBay failed because I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get it working. SWMBO had more opinions. So the FlashXpress aka Astro Boy will be the resident toaster as well as toaster oven.

The Panasonic combi oven isn't currently in the purchase plans because i) I have Giselle, ii) it costs >$1K USD, and iii) SWMBO would have opinions that I'd rather not elicit.

But, you know, a girl can dream.

Wait - you have five ovens including your Breville, no? I am feeling quite deprieved.

Well, not including the "water oven" (sous vide stick and vat), the multicooker, the retired toaster oven, and the beloved very retired but too beloved toaster oven which could burn down the house if allowed to get hot. But they're all different! It's the Gaggenau 30" wall oven, the work horse of the house, with its special coil and inch think pizza stone, enamelled trays that fit to the shelf racks, and pyrolitic 905° F cleaning, the Gaggenau combi-convetion/steam plumbed oven, the Monogram Advantium Pro speed oven with three heat sources, and the warming drawer, which has exactly one furbelow, a lever which opens and closes vents, for dry or wet. For Passover, I've had 3-4 burners (both gas and induction) going, meat in sous vide, the oven and steam oven working, the casseroles reheating in the Advantium, and plates and extra sides in the warming drawer.

No toast, of course. ;) Oh, and the cheapie MW which comes out when the Advantium, now for the second time), is on the fritz.

So, if I understand correctly, Ms. MBO likes her funky MW and don't touch it. You're getting this toaster oven (linked) to toast. You are not getting the weird toaster oven with the top slots that push down into the oven part. You are not getting the Canadian steam toaster that looks iffy to me. You did get a vintage Sunbeam toaster but it needs fixing.

Is that right?

There are all kinds of videos and forums about fixing the toaster. If the new espresso machine turns out to be a doddle to fix up, maybe you'll have some time left to really get into the toaster and fix it up right. I've found good use for both the cute slot toaster and the toasting in the Breville. I'm sure AstroBoy can learn to get along with his elders.

I do understand Giselle (second oven, steams), toaster oven and microwave, and the Sunbeam. I just couldn't help teasing you when you went down the garden path with yet one more when you were tyring to go minimalist at the start. :D

This is SWMBO’s microwave. She likes it because you simply push one button. It has other buttons, but they could all be deleted and it wouldn’t matter.

Under it is DD’s college espresso machine which is now DS’s college espresso machine and came home to get fixed, before returning for its seventh year of college. I expect it has a Masters by now and is ready to start a PhD in College Kid Espresso.

I am envious of all your ovens! In truth I am more of a burner cook but still!

Perhaps I mentioned DD’s plan to open a cafe-bookstore. She seems rather serious about it, albeit her plan is to return from Marseille and spend some time working as a barista and taking community college business classes while we look for the right location to open up, so most likely we’ll end up opening during the next recession which is fine with me, some of the profusion of hair salons and essential oils boutiques should go away and free up space.

Anyway building out even a small commercial kitchen in a former retail shop space will be expensive, and why improve leased property to that degree? so I briefly looked at getting my kitchen licensed. It would be an excuse to get more appliances. But it won’t work, even a licensed home kitchen is only allowed to make a narrow list of things. Fortunately there are plenty of ghost kitchens around to at least get started with. The friend who started his cafe with the Elektra I restored and gave him is a commercial roaster, so she can do her roasting in his facility, if she goes that route.

Excellent about the roaster friend. I'd think that the coffee would be the lifeblood of the place, at which point house roast is de rigueur. If you know anyone in the scientific glass biz who can help her, a habitrail of a cold brewer that could also be a draw. Her plan to work on the actual coffee service and learn the business basics is really smart.

But, Sir, I must admit, I know and have known a lot of college students. Yours are the only ones with an espresso machine!

Thanks for the picture of the one touch MW. It's cool looking in its own way.

It's funny about cooking styles. Eggs, sauces, soup/stew and stock, and boiling of pasta, happen on the stove. And browning, melting, and sloppy joes. For me, however, real food comes out of an oven. Plus, I bake. When I lived abroad and a couple of propane gas rings were my only place to cook, I had a special pot that was like a ring shaped oven, which could bake a cake or casserole over the fire. I did a lot of both.

So, rather than improving leased property, find an already built out space which has at least the bathroom requirements and ventilation. Do the rest unfitted, or get it in your lease that you can remove the fixtures when you leave. Or, wait for that business trough and buy the building...

When I said Estro Profi (“Ester” to her familials) is fixed, I was overlooking one remaining problem. Her complicated Gran Crema pressurized portafilter (left) is still not working, for reasons obscure and enervating. However, her grinder is fixed and with an aftermarket bottomless portafilter (right), she now pulls drinkable shots and makes passable lattes.

I have been making SWMBO’s morning bedside lattes with Ester instead of Elektra, and while she initially grumbled (SWMBO, not Ester), the nitpicking is declining as Ester’s output gets better.

I still want to fix Ester’s original pressurized portafilter, before she returns to school. Finals require espresso without the fuss of a bottomless portafilter.

I concur with the necessity of no fuss, but I clearly recall that no fuss caffeine abuse was available in college with no Italian equipment required. What your young sophisticates have is *good* caffeine abuse. Quality. Potential for deliciousness. I well remember the concentrated scorched dishwater served up by the campus sandwich shop during finals. It did the job while reminding one that drug abuse was in progress and the crash after the exam was imminent and ugly. But then we were a mostly self-sacrificing lot for whom the hideousness of the coffee reinforced our self-perceptions of austere virtue.

Yes, I was not at all a coffee connoisseur in college. Lots of cream and sugar from a vending machine. It was just a conveyance for caffeine and sucrose. Sophistication, such as the uncouth we could muster, was reserved for alcohol and other drugs. We used to skate down to the Co-Op and return with a few bottles of imported beer over which we'd smack our lips like it was a 30 year old wine. But times have changed, good beer is too expensive, and coffee is the most potent drug of which most college kids regularly partake, from my observation anyway, so I think they should Learn. Decent. Espresso. I mean, what am I spending my tuition money on otherwise?

My theory is that Chinese cooking tends to be more on burners rather than in ovens, with steaming often replacing baking. Not entirely, and there may be a difference in regional cuisines with more baking/roasting in the cold North (Beijing duck, etc) and less in the hot South (we come from generally around Shanghai). I recall my grandmother never used her oven, other than for storage. My mother and father seldom cooked anything in the oven, not that they cooked much. So, the theory goes, I was epigenetically wired to fry, sear, saute, braise, grill, boil, simmer more than to roast, bake, broil. Of course I've done far more European-ish cooking than Chinese-ish cooking, but still. I think this is part of what makes Giselle so fun for me.

For sure, doing new stuff with beautiful new equipment is fun!

My roots are all Northern European/Middle Eastern, so maybe that is something. I forgot to say frying on my list of stove stuff—-I do very little of it, though am aiming just now to make a literal mess of latkes and get them in the freezer. But my mother made paellas, and something one might call ”stir fries” if that term were disconnected from it's wok connotations. Other stove top things I can't think of. She designed her kitchen with 7 burners, though after we were grown and the hordes of family and school and comminity and organization people were no longer ravening through, two burners got replaced with butcher block, as a holding area.

I have come to a conclusion that some of these small countertop ovens are a nice alternative to heating up a big oven for a small use.

I bought an Oster toaster that can be used as a small oven. I bought just with the intention of having a toaster. It is a perfectly lousy toaster! But I find that I use it as a small oven and it performs better for that.

Some of these range ovens are so darned big! What a waste of energy to heat the size of a small room just to bake one little thing. But people do it all the time.

Even my new double oven range has a small oven that is bigger than I want. I use it sparingly.

It depends on a lot of factors, I think. It takes a lot to warm up my big oven from completely cold, but it's exceptionally well insulated and warming it up from used it a few hours ago is no big deal The countertop ovens have nothing to do with waste heat but pump it out into the kitchen. I think my Advantium, while bigger than many of the type, is probably the most efficient though perhaps similar to the Breville Pro, but the combi-steam, because it down't require volume, is remarkably light on its feet.

OTOH, range ovens are "darned big" and perhaps less engineered for efficiency. I had a range a couple of times in student apartments. I hardly cooked in them, however, though did make choux puffs in both. They couldn't have been too bad. ;) But I'm guessing they were both 30". Those huge ovens in the bigger ranges are something else. :)

My range is a near-commercial type (American Range open-burner all-gas) and it doesn’t seem engineered for efficiency, but for BTUs, reliability, simplicity, and speed. We seldom need the full 36” oven, and when we do it is running for hours on end cooking multiple things so warm-up time hardly matters. One appealing thing about a 48” range would be having two smaller ovens. Right now, I find myself using Giselle 10X more than the range oven.

I fixed the Grand Crema portafilter for Ester. After taking it apart for the n-th time, I realized there is a orifice hidden under a plastic cover, that, once unclogged, allows the espresso to flow. Yaay! DS will now be able to make espresso with either portafilter, and Ester can resume her graduate studies.

I roasted a chicken in Giselle. Your basic roast chicken, no tricks. It was really good - super moist breast meat, papery crisp skin. She is truly a generational talent.

Santa will, Amazon snitches, bring me Astro Boy for adoption, and he will live on the shiny steel shelf over the range.

Then we will have ovens like the Three Bears had porridge, chairs, and beds: great big, middle, and baby bear sized.

Did you know there are many versions of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”? I have mis-remembered the story for, it seems, my whole life. I always thought Goldilocks tried the big one and it was too big, the small one and it was too small, the middle one and it was just right. The story is an allegory for choosing the middle things, or so I thought. Actually Goldilocks invariably prefers Baby Bear’s littlest porridge, which she eats, chair, which she breaks, and bed, in which she is caught sleeping. What kind of an allegory is that?

Re-reading the story(ies) for the first time in many decades, I’m struck by how impliedly humble life was as portrayed. Baby Bear cries because someone has broken his chair and he only has the one chair. Today we buy chairs by the gross at Ikea, and discard them by the gross at the landfill.

Sigh, I’ll go grouse at a cloud now, except its a drone.

We were just talking about the astronomical Goldilocks Zone (i.e., ”just right” for liquid water) at dinner. I've never heard it told to take the moderate path. The point was naught interlopers will not behave like good guests, and will wreck your stuff. Wikipedia has a really good article about it, including literary devices and morals I was trying to find what was wrong with the beds, which I've forgotten. One porridge, Papa Bear's is too hot, Mama's is too cool, and something that always puzzled me is that Baby Bear's is just right, though Baby's is a smaller protion. Papa's chair is too hard, Mama's is too soft, Baby's is just right, but breaks. Some versions repeat the hard/soft for the beds. I think that's why I had a hard time remembering. Sometimes there's too high/low, too flat/fluffy, etc., but the baby's is always the just right, while being the smallest.

Congrats on your future friend's travel ticket! I assume you're taken into account the hazards of reaching across a hot stove.

Double congrats on the chicken. Did you use steam?

I hadn’t thought of the hazard. I’m fairly insousciant of burns etc, but will think about it.

No steam, no tricks. Giselle was bored - like modeling for the phone book, she muttered - but she’s a professional.

I looked at the Wikipedia entry about Goldilocks, and see where my child mind got confused.

The story is indeed, or at least some think it is, about picking the middle choice.

”This follows three earlier sequences of Goldilocks trying the bowls of porridge, chairs, and beds successively, each time finding the third "just right". Author Christopher Bookercharacterises this as the "dialectical three" where "the first is wrong in one way, the second in another or opposite way, and only the third, in the middle, is just right". Booker continues: "This idea that the way forward lies in finding an exact middle path between opposites is of extraordinary importance in storytelling". ”

In my child mind, Papa bear is the biggest, Baby bear is the smallest, Mama bear is in the middle. So if we enforce rigorous parallelism, and choose the middle-est thing each time, Goldilocks should always prefer the middle bear’s - Mama bear’s - things and those things should be in the middle of the pertinent characteristic.

Baby’s porridge should be the coldest and Mama’s warmer than Baby’s but cooler than Papa’s. Mama’s chair should be neither too hard nor too soft. Mama’s bed should be neither too whatever nor too whatever.

I still prefer the allegory as re-written by 5 y/o me, as the lesson drawn from the actual story could well be to take from the littlest and weakest, in which case Goldilocks would be a capitalism parable.

Oh! Miscommunication. I meant that it wasn't the middle sized one. I must have misunderstood you. Yes, the whole point is there are two extremes and just right is between them, but just right isn't necessarily about size. Given similar bowls, and physics over storytelling, baby's porridge should have been coldest, but if self-effacing mom has the thin chipped bowl, Papa has the sturdy big bowl that won’t overturn and break when he sticks his big snout in, and baby has a Thermous style non-tip feeding bowl, perhaps, physics included, baby's has the best temperature. ;) But ontologically, you have a good point. Though if Goldilocks were the young girl, as depicted, isn't it more fitting, choosing as does one's peer? Mama's too soft chair may have to do with post partum changes to her situpon. :)

Baby bear’s oven is here, and Goldilocks had better keep her hands off.

DS and SWMBO have named him “Wall-e”, so “Astro-Boy“ is no more before he ever was.

The modius operandi is simple. Push ”on”, right/left arrow to select temperature, up/down arrow to select time in half-minute increments. Done. There are pre-sets, for toast, frozen hash browns, frozen pizza, and so on, with lighter/darker buttons, but I doubt we’ll ever use them.

The microwave is now ”Eva”, to go with Wall-e.

Making toast in Wall-E is simple. Place toast on rack, press ”on”, optionally press ”dark” or ”light”. Default is 2.5 minutes, helpfully counted down by the archaic red LED numerals for whole minutes and the “.5” for half minutes.

Serviceable and quick toast, up to four large slices at a time.

So nice to hear that the new toaster toasts! Congratulations!

Wall-E is great for small volume, fast, hot, bake/roast without the bother of warm-up time. Here he is making crab cakes. Giselle did the brussel sprouts and walnuts. They are a good pair. Eva melted the butter.

I got some energy, so after making my preferment for the bread, I bethought me of the sacks of sugar waiting to go in the clean canister, and oh, I should use up the leftover pecan crumbs and wine in the bread, and why not put in the rest of the pecans, which led to contemplating toasting them, but I really hate toasting nuts, but the now clean quarter sheet pans had be sitting on the clean sugar canister and I thought maybe they'd fit in the Breville Pro. These are the commercial use heavy pans with the big rolled edge. They're overall a bit bigger than the spec quarter sheet. Loaw and behold! Fits perfectly with some aiir space around. I don't know if that's an artifact of US vs. metric, or if it was designed to hold all nominal quarter sheets worldwide or what, but yippee! This seemed much better than the usual wrangling an oven tray with slidy nuts, etc. There were only about half a pint left. Problem is, they fit fine on parchment on the sheet which fit fine in the oven, but I got distracted pouring out hte sugar and all and next thing I knew, they were burnt! :(

It takes a lot less time in the Breville Pro, given how much less air needs toasting there.

Maybe I'll put almond slivers in the bread. They're open and cut don't last as long as whole...

I’m a believer in small, fast ovens!