I threw away the microwave oven today.
Some time last week, it did not heat up the food I wished to nuke. I tested it on the weekend, but do not know the result, since I forgot about it while gardening, and returned to the kitchen much later, when the coffee inside it was cold, if it had indeed ever been hot. Today I was more methodical, with my specs on this time. No, no. It had given up the ghost. One more thing that I do not need is gone. It has made space for space. Or for a toaster. That’s a thought.
I have just remembered I shattered my Pyrex jug outside on the weekend. The tomato seeds inside it needed planting. I repented my clumsiness immediately as I swept up the glass, and a good deal else besides. That jug had a history. It was just a thing, dammit. I kept the plate from the microwave. Tomatoes will look good on it, in the fullness of time.
©2018 Allison Wright
That elusive pair of jeans 
I like all your posts Allison!
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I don’t have a microwave at all, but a toaster is an essential!
Although it’s very hard to get a toaster that’s capable of actually toasting the things I might want it to – it needs to have slots that are wide enough for badly hewn pieces of bread, long enough for cut off ends of baguettes and with a system that enables even small pieces of bread to be lifted out of the interior so that I don’t end up having to do that thing with the chopsticks again, or alternatively end up shaking it upside down over the counter, thereby covering everything in a 20 metre radius with burnt crumbs (and, usually, killing the toaster into the bargain). AND it needs to not have an outside that becomes incandescently hot in use. You’d think all of these things would be standard on any toaster, but nope. I once had a wonderful toaster that did all of these things, but it gave up the ghost immediately after the one year warranty expired. It had been jolly expensive too (about 80€). Though I suppose in terms of TCO that’s not very much per piece of correctly browned toast.
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I love your “Toaster Manifesto” Jane! Our family had the same Morphy Richards two-slice toaster (incapable of handling baguettes, though) for well over thirty years. My parents received it as a wedding present, I believe. One detail I had overlooked until now was that my father was an electrician by trade, and I think he replaced the elements several times over the decades, until one day, the elements on their own were no longer available. I had left long left home, but the arbitrary successor white model (compared to the chrome and lemon yellow Morphy Richards with black knob and dial) always sat strangely in my parents’ kitchen to my eyes, anyway.
A quick foray into wthrealm of online shopping suggests that this might be what you’re looking for (the handling of baguettes still being a problem, it has to be said!):
https://www.fruugo.pt/morphy-richards-242004-acentos-vermelho-4-torradeira/p-10903918-22786468?showOriginalDescription=true
The now disassembled, demolished and discarded microwave was a gift some seven or eight years ago from some kind soul – in the days when I cooked enough dinner for leftovers to be consumed at lunch the next day, and nuking said leftovers was a definite timesaver.
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