modern technology

The place we lived before the house had a built-in microwave, so we gave mine away. It wasn't a nice microwave, it had the simplest possible controls (a single dial) for my aging grandmother's sake. It warmed things by adding energy to the water molecules inside them, and that plus a door that closes is all you really need out of a microwave.

We've been living all this time without one, for one reason and another, but we've finally gotten to the point of needing to have easy foods around for zombified adults to eat, especially with me and lunch, and while you can of course heat things up in the countertop oven, it requires 30 minutes of planning ahead, which is mostly what we're trying to avoid for the zombified adults.

I had gone without a microwave for a while before, in the Dark Apartment of 2007-2008. I was cooking for myself constantly, engaged in one of the heights of my aikido and Zen practices, and planning 30 minutes ahead for dinner wasn't a problem. Eventually Nana moved into a nursing home back east, and I kept the microwave and toaster oven.

Now it's been 3 years without one, and I would just like to say that holy shit they are amazing.

I eat Trader Joe's Pork Buns sometimes. You can do them on the stove, boiling water (but not too much water) for some amount of time, always check to see if they're done, and the whole thing takes 20 minutes. For frozen pork buns. It's pretty rare that I can start a task 20 minutes ahead of time. Now it's 2 minutes. Frozen Indian food, in like 7 minutes instead of 40.

Once you know how they work and what it's reasonable to use them for, they really are that awesome. I'd forgotten.