The hallowed hob

Following up on my October post titled "Best 30-inch gas cooktop", here's one additional picture to tell a thousand words:

Not staged, very messy, totally authentic:
Do the math - that's a 14-inch wok and a 13-inch frying pan on a 30-inch cooktop, with room to spare for a pot and I could even put a bigger pot there if I needed to. 

This space-defying feat brought to you by a great stove design which wastes not a single millimeter, and which allows a slight but critical overhang of cookware on each side, creating virtual cooking space.   

The other night for the first time, it dawned on me that I could cook dinner AND breakfast at the same time, like this.  The dinner is a stew and the breakfast is a protein-rich concoction of organic eggs scrambled with lean Canadian bacon, green onions from the garden, spinach, and Reggiano cheese.  There's no time in the morning to make anything fancy, so this goes into the fridge and individual family members can take portions and warm them in the microwave for breakfast. 

As I was taking this photo, I had that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach:  Did I really live with an inefficient builder-grade cooktop for three and a half years??  How many hours did I waste in that time??  How many healthy options did I not prepare and shove into the refrigerator because the original cooktop only allowed serial food preparation when, in all practicality given time constraints, I really needed to prepare items in parallel if I were to prepare them at all?   

Of course I should have upgraded much sooner but there was the monumental issue of all that market research (at least 20 hours' worth) and the challenge of having to ship the thing sight-unseen from out of state. 

Moral of the story:  I think it's worth it.  Were I strapped for cash, I would gladly do without a lot of other consumer items in order to prioritize the purchase of a cooktop like this.