For the past 7 months (*GASP* have I lived out here that long already? Wow!), I have been living what many people would consider a primitive life. I avoided getting cable TV until March (that is a full 5 months w/o cable) and I only got it b/c baseball season was starting. I paid cash for an 11-year old car with 188000 miles on it. Yes, just shy of two-hundred thousand miles. But the one thing that seems to disturb people the most is that I have gone without buying a microwave. I don't have one at the apartment and I really have no intention of buying one.Sure, Claire has one at her place and I have used it, but I really have little use for one. Yes, I LOVE leftovers and eat them all the time. I just warm things up on the stove.
"So, what is the point Bogart?" screams his 4 readers...
Well, let me tell you what I have learned by not owning a microwave:
1. If you warm up food in a pan on the stove, it seems to hold the heat better and longer. I don't know if this has to do with the physics of warming (microwaves work by exciting the water molecules in the item you are warming), but it really does work better.
2. Warming pizza on the stove top is tough. It is better to just turn the oven to 350 degrees, slide the pizza in for 5-7 mins, and then partake. I might have had a couple of dinners with burnt bottoms and cold tops...sounds like a cheap porno, no?
3. You go through a lot of butter warming things on the stove. You got to grease the pan somehow and butter just tastes so good! (As an aside, another thing I learned is that you don't want to use unsalted butter for anything but baking. Trust me on this.)
4. A lot of foods I don't consider greasy leave a lot of grease behind when you warm them in a pan...Sure cheese is a big offender, but milk also leaves some weird greesy residue. Strange, eh?
5. It may take a little longer, but it is more satisfying and enjoyable. Since I like to cook and have the willingness to spend 5 mins over the stove instead of 60 seconds at the microwave door, it has been a good thing.
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Does make popcorn much more difficult...I am not going to lie.
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Do you like the tan I am sporting in the picture above? Just like I was back in SoCal.
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Top 50, Part 6
As a disclaimer, these songs are my favorite. I don't necessarily consider them the best songs ever, but they are songs that I turn the radio up EVERY TIME they come on. I sing them loud. I know all the words. They make me happy.
25. Mountains Win Again - Blues Traveler...I love this entire album, but this song, whatever the heck it means is great. I think I am a sucker for a good, olde-fashioned harmonica.
24. Something - Beatles...So much of their music is unbelievably bad. I mean hideous. So much of it is also amazing. Wonder if the drugs had something to do with it?
23. American Pie - Don McLean...Yes, I saw Michael Scott and Dwight Schroot singing it last week. That was drop dead funny. So is watching me sing it in the car, but I do it every time.
22. My Immortal - Evanescence...Her voice is "captivating".
21. Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams...I love Bryan Adams music. I wonder if I love this song because I have always secretly wanted to be a front man for a rock band...despite the fact that I can't sing.
Top 50, Part 1
Top 50, Part 2
Top 50, Part 3
Top 50, Part 4
Top 50, Part 5
7 comments:
I can;t even comprehend the lunacy that is not owning a microwave.
How do you heat up a burrito?
I have a sucky microwave. I totally get that burnt bottoms, cold tops thing (that's what she said...). I rarely use the thing, because everything tastes better warmed up the way it started.
I even make popcorn in a sauce pan with some oil and shake it over the burner. So much better!
More great song choices - I'm just usually at my destination before I can ever get through American Pie.
Microwaves cause cancer anyways, right?
That's what all the bizarre forward this to your friends or you will die emails keep telling me.
Sorry, a blog for another day.
Anyway...can I just say that I LOVE AMERICAN PIE by Don McLean. One of my all time faves...I don't even get what the lyrics mean, but I have to turn it up and belt it out myself whenever I hear it!
Woohoo! Great song!
Becky, the maid :)
So I was going to email you back, but you have no email up! Or if you do, I'm blind. But AJ totally knows you, haha that is waaaay too random. Small world like wo. And I love American Pie, fantastic.
Well, look at it this way, you're not getting all those toxins the plastic leeches into the food when you heat it up. I'm trying to do less microwaving and if I do, I heat things up on a plate.
Great song choices! I've loved American Pie since high school. My sophomore english teacher had us study various songs as poems and American Pie was one we analyzed. So much symbolism there.
When our microwave broke, I actually forgot that you could warm things up another way. The first time I took something out of the fridge to warm up I thought, Oh, that's right. We don't have a microwave. There was a huge, long pause as I realized I could use a pot and the stove.
RS27 - I have gotten used to it...and the burrito thing? Well, I turn on the oven. Even Hot Pockets work like that. Just takes longer.
DKG - Time to free yourself of the microwave burden.
Becky - I got a million from Microsoft...didn't you?
Katelin - Our world is so very small. I can't even begin to tell you. The fact that I saw someone I knew back then on your blog is crazy. Well, I guess there is only 1 degree of separation.
Laura - Is it strange that I think the worms would survive the pan more than they would survive in the microwave? I guess I should not think about those things.
OK - Clearly, you have a problem...break the addiction. You can do it.
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