About a week ago, while cooking my evening meal, the electric grill on my otherwise all-gas kitchen cooker failed. The electric element seemed to give an odd spitting noise, and then the hood light (a separate component) went out. As did some other lights around my house. The gas jets burned on, but I immediately turned them off. I didn't want my vegetables ready before my steak.
The circuit breaker in the consumer unit had detected a power fault, and had cut in. I reset it, and lights came on again. So did all the cooker electrics, apart from the grill. That stayed dead. I relit the gas burners, and popped the half-cooked steak into the frying pan with the mushrooms and tomatoes, and finished it off there.
It was OK. The meal was saved. But I much preferred grilling my beef and gammon steaks, and my bacon rashers, so a kaput electric grill was bad news.
This was the Belling cooker I bought eight years ago. It was a mid-range model, with a four-burner gas hob, a main gas oven, and a smaller gas oven that also doubled as an electric grill. It had its irritations - the plastic control knobs tended to break - but it cooked well, and had never before given major trouble. Even now, it remained an excellent gas cooker - quite good enough for my needs, anyway - but the grill was now useless.
So if cooking at home, and grilling something was an absolute necessity, I'd now have to do it using the gas grill in the caravan parked outside. In fact the best cooker I had, the one that could do it all, was now the gas cooker in the caravan! And if I wanted crispy bacon with my breakfast, or a beautifully flame-kissed steak, I'd have to enjoy it on my caravan holidays. I couldn't have the same thing anymore inside my house.
Had the time come, then, to replace my old cooker? (Although eight years surely didn't make it all that ancient)
I thought about it. With combating Climate Change in mind, the replacement couldn't be a gas cooker. It would have to be some kind of electric cooker.
Was I ready for that?
I recalled my experiences with the ceramic hob and electric oven at the Cottage, when I lived there full-time for six months back in 2009. I'd certainly got used to it; I'd cooked good meals with it; but I'd badly missed the instant heat and fine control offered by a gas cooker. Cooking with electricity was clearly viable, it just needed a modified technique. Mind you, I didn't know how you stir-fried with a wok, using electricity. Maybe you couldn't. However, I did enjoy how easy it was to clean an electric cooker.
What effect would a switch to cooking with electricity have on my household bills? I'd certainly use less gas, so the gas bills would be cut a bit. But on the other hand, my electricity bills would be higher. Overall, more to pay - but would it break the bank? No, of course not. And I'd be helping the planet.
What about installation? It would be a freestanding cooker. Just plug it in? Ah - was there an existing heavy-duty wire from the consumer unit? With the right fuse?
I checked the archive photos of my kitchen, taken when installing my present cooker in 2013. I'd emptied and cleaned the space it would fit into. I might well have a clear shot of the electric socket. Yes, I did. It looked like an ordinary wall socket that you'd plug a kettle into - and not the substantial kind of socket for a full-blown electric cooker. Well, I could turn off the circuit, and check the wiring and fuse inside that existing socket. But if it was just ordinary wiring, with a standard 13 amp domestic fuse, then I'd have to get an electrician to upgrade my circuitry before buying a new electric cooker. At some expense, of course.
And what kind of electric cooker? Well, a good make that would last. Otherwise, nothing too fancy. Even so, a quick look on the internet suggested that I'd certainly be paying more than £500. Let's say at least £1,000 altogether to buy and wire up a decent ceramic-hob electric cooker. It was manageable, but not something to approach too soon, nor without a good deal of thought. I'd consult my friends first, as well as carrying-out a lot of research on the internet. A pity the showrooms were all closed because of the current lockdown! I'd want to see shortlisted cookers in the flesh before buying, or at least similar models from the particular maker, to assess quality and ease of operation. This wasn't anything I could rush into then. (Perhaps just as well)
Meanwhile, anything I'd normally grill would have to be cooked some other way. No great hardship; but I'd be even more eager now to get away in the caravan, and use a proper gas grill!
