There are many things going on right now. Sleep training, which also means nap training, which kind of means no sleep or naps for anybody? Bank accounts, home insurance, Farrell’s two-hour commute (each way! dammit, Bruges), figuring out dinner every night (I’m starting to realize we went out for dinner a lot or I usually left dinner-making to Farrell. not anymore!), and all sorts of other things.
Then all the stuff we packed up in Bishkek showed up and the house exploded with balls of crumpled, old Russian newspaper that Masha’s landlord was hoarding in her closet.
But between the unpacking and madness, I decided to snap a few quick photos of our kitchen.
Lovely, isn’t it? Crisp, white walls; chalkboard contact paper on the fridge; stylish, dark gray tiles; functional cabinets from Ikea.
Wait, what’s missing?
Yup.
I know.
I asked Farrell about this a few times when we were in the US, and he said he couldn’t remember. He had only taken a quick tour of the house before stating his interest, and I hadn’t seen the place until we moved here. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great house, definitely the best of all the places we looked at (I think seven places in total?).
But.
But…
Any chance you can get a countertop convection oven thing? Two of the places we lived in didn’t have an oven (and only had hotplates instead of a stovetop, ugh) and our landlord got us a fancy convection oven/microwave combo. I was sceptical at first but it was really awesome and cooked a lot better than any of the ovens I’ve had since. It wasn’t big enough to do a whole turkey but it was big enough to do a whole chicken or a leg of lamb and it baked a beautiful loaf of bread.
If you have any recommendations for brands or models or whatever, that would be great! I’ve thought about those, but I just have no idea where to start with looking for a good one. I love love LOVE baking bread and it has been such a bummer not having an oven!
We had the Panasonic NN-C980B, our landlords bought it for us so I don’t really know what else is out there or if they did any extensive research before they bought it. I don’t think you can get that one any more but it at least gives you a little bit of an idea.
All the best!
Hi kirstin
you can try vandenborre
http://www.vandenborre.be/frituurpan-wafelijzer-cooking/braadoven
Vanden Borre Gent
Adres
Martelaarslaan 307
9000 Gent
or Krefel
http://www.krefel.be/nl/mini_oven/SKEY_B570
Krëfel GENT
Rooigemlaan 2A
9000
this is very helpful, thank you!
I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you guys one last time before you left!
The no-oven thing seems to be the universe’s way of telling you either,
a. baked goods will make you fat
b. an oven will be the cause of your demise
c. you were a baker in a past life & you have violated some cosmic law involving the amount of cakes one soul is able to produce.
interesting.
I’m going to bake in defiance of the universe, cosmic laws be damned! We’re going to buy a tabletop one at the very least, if not building a new cabinet to house a full-sized one.
There were two things I absolutely had to have when I was looking for an apartment in Belgium 1) A true one bedroom apartment, not a studio 2) an oven.
We ended up having to buy a countertop combination convection/microwave oven. If you haven’t bought an oven yet, I have to recommend the one we just bought. It’s a Whirlpool Jet Chef Premium and I love it. I have made cookies, bread, and cheesecake in it and as long as you adjust the cooking time (have to let things cook a little longer because there is no Pre-Heat function that I have found) it all comes out delicious.
Thanks for the recommendation! Hopefully my husband is picking up a countertop oven we found online tonight, I’ve been emailing back and forth with someone for weeks trying to coordinate when we’re both available, and the day is finally here! But if it falls through, I’ll definitely look into the Jet Chef Premium.
no oven?! are you kidding me? that is now what i associate with you after that episode – kirstin neeeeds an oven 😉