The Death of a Microwave

Today my 10 year old microwave oven died.

Yet rather than mourning its loss, I am quite pleased.

We have all heard the horror stories of carcinogenic plastics entering our food when we heat things in the microwave, and while I am not certain of their truth, I am happy to try old ways of heating my food for a while.

I thought my husband would insist that I buy a new one immediately, but he too is happy to try going without. Our goal is to buy a new home fairly soon and it would be silly to buy a new microwave now only to have it not fit in our next kitchen.

I remember when my mother bought her first microwave in the 1980s. She held off for a while because she was concerned about radiation entering her food, but eventually she succumbed and bought one. A teenager at the time, I scorned her fears and was pleased that she was entering the modern era. Mum soon bought a Women's Weekly microwave cookbook and even attended microwave cooking classes at the local high school.

Like most people these days we mostly use our microwave for reheating drinks and warming up meals. I have never baked a cake in the microwave and I rarely even cook vegetables in it.

Yet I wonder how I'll manage without one? I've never been microwaveless before. In a week or two I'll let you know how this experiment is going.