Blessed is the woman married to a man who can cook.

We have spent years cooking on a stove that looked like a stove but was, in reality, a piece of stainless steel junk.  It has been slowly falling apart since the day we bought it: knobs have cracked, every one of the burner plates wobbled, the entire oven door would come off if opened with too much vigor, the burners all had to be lit with a match, as did the oven and broiler.  It was, in short, a bad little stove.  Then the microwave that we had stupidly placed above the stove died.  And that was the final straw.

So we shopped around for what seemed like forever for a new stove.  I learned a lot about stoves.  Not surprisingly, I discovered that I preferred the high-end ones.  Such a surprise.  In the end, I was able to tone it down from a Wolf or a Viking to a slightly more modest GE Monogram gas stove.  It's solidly built and has knobs you turn instead of digital panels and, best of all, the oven door not only stays attached no matter what, but the racks glide out on casters.  I was in love.  

It arrived on a truck last Wednesday when Bruce was home.  He called me at school to hesitantly inform me that somehow we had received the gas cooktop as expected, but beneath it was an electric oven.  It's called Dual Fuel.  I instantly went just a teeny-tiny batshit crazy when I heard this -- I hate electric stoves.  The thing had already been installed and I fumed all the way home.  I was prepared to battle to the death to get rid of this electric oven monstrosity that now sat in my kitchen.  

When I got home, I'd calmed down enough to refrain from kicking either Bruce or the stove.

Bruce showed me the paperwork where the saleslady had handwritten the product number of the all-gas model.  Unfortunately she wrote it on the fact sheet for the Dual Fuel one.  It looked like the mistake was theirs, so I was relieved.  However, in an effort to be calm and fair, I studied the owner's manuel to see what this thing was that we'd gotten by mistake.  And I discovered that what we had was a gas cooktop with a convection oven.  A convection oven which, with its fans, cooks food evenly, quickly and beautifully.  A convection oven which was much more expensive than the regular gas oven that I'd expected to get.

The stove and hood are installed.  Next will come a new backsplash...

So I shut up and embraced the newest member of the Frogpond clan.  Meet Stove.

On Sunday morning, Bruce decided to try out the new oven, so he whipped up cheese soufflé.  It was glorious, and fragrant and delicious.  And, best of all, the oven door didn't fall off when my wonderful husband took his lovely creation out.

Yes, blessed is the woman married to a man who can cook.