Meet Jacques

This is Jacques. (After Jacques Pepin, of course.) Jacques has recently taken up residence in my kitchen and I couldn't be more pleased. (I don't think this picture does him justice, honestly. And, well, I think my little button display on the top looks different than this one off the Maytag site.) Sadly, he wasn't quite able to make it before Easter, but I tarried along anyway with my hobbled together old oven (I did mention that the ignitor died and it ended up being a bigger problem than we thought, right?)

I have always wanted a double oven. Well, ok, not always. It really tracks back to when we started having all the family holidays over at our house. (Which I love! I get to cook! I get to experiment! I don't have to travel in holiday traffic! I get the leftovers!) See, sometimes when you're running hither, thither, and yon trying to put together the latest culinary masterpiece suggested by those wonderful folks at Gourmet magazine you end up needing to cook one thing at 375 for 4 hours and another thing at 425 for 2 and a half hours. And since you'd really like them both to be hot and on the table at the same time, you're faced with a bit of a conundrum. I've managed (mostly successfully) to navigate my way around these little annoyances, but after each holiday I would stand in my kitchen and contemplate renovating the island to make room for a cooktop and putting double wall ovens where my current range was. I would mention these thoughts to Tim, who would then turn an amazing shade of white and slide bonelessly to the floor. So I never really got farther than the whole, "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" conversation.

And then the oven died. Of course, this happened right about the same time I lost my job. So kitchen renovation was right out. So we looked into just fixing the old oven - and we probably could've figured something out. But then! Then I got a new job. And when comparing the expense of fixing the old oven (not cheap) with the continued thoughts of renovating (seriously not cheap), we thought we'd just go look at new oven options. And then compromise was found in the blissful and wonderful form of Jacques.

The top oven heats up wicked fast. Because it's smaller (duh) but still just about perfect for "average daily use". You know, pizzas, taco shells, cookies, brownies, that kind of thing. And the bottom oven? It has convection options!

Convection ovens have always been this mysterious siren of the cooking world to me. Something "Real Chefs" had and knew how to use. Something only true Epicureans would understand. And now that world has been opened up to little ol' me. Anyone have good resources for learning about convection cooking? Or is it a trial and error thing?

Regardless, Jacques is the newest member of our family and I hope to have many, many wonderful interactions with him to share with you in the future.

And yes, there are 5 burners on that range. Score!