We bought a condo earlier this year, and moved into it in October. We have loved the unit and its location, and one of the advantages was that it came fully furnished. The prior owners were returning to England after decades in South America and left us everything. Most of the stuff they left is quite good, and has made us realize we brought too many things from California. However, the oven has been an exception.
Original Indura oven
This was an Indura oven — an Ecuadorian brand that is ubiquitous here. Unfortunately, the main reason it is so common is because it is so cheap — in all senses of the word… It requires pressing a starter button for one full minute to get it lit. (That is no exaggeration — release the button in less than a minute and the fire goes out) And when was the last time you saw an oven with no temperature controls?
Indura oven controls
Look closely at that photo above. The far left dial is a timer. It doesn’t actually control the oven at all. It is simply an old fashioned “turn all the way to the right, then back to the time you want — it will buzz when the time has counted down from there” rotary kitchen timer. The button on the far right is a fan control (for convection heating), and a starter (hold down for a minute, as mentioned above). The middle button is ‘off’ if up, ‘broiler/grill’ if to the right, and ‘bake’ if to the left. No way to set or control the temperature. It is on or it is off. Period.
We know people who use this exact type of oven to make pizza or bread, or other baked items. We found it took more than twice as long to bake as our California oven, and with no temp controls, it was too hard to tell what was going on.
Doing some research, we discovered there is a General Electric store about six blocks away. Evelyn went over there yesterday, saw an oven she liked, and bought it.
GE oven fits in same cabinet slot as the Indura
They promised to bring and install it this afternoon, and they arrived right on time. Remember when I said the store was six blocks away? The installer said there nobody was in the store to help him, so he carried the oven the entire way (with a hand-truck, of course) on foot, from the store. The box was too big to fit into our elevator, so he then carried it up five flights of stairs too. Somehow I can’t see any installer from Home Depot in California going to such lengths — he would have just decided he couldn’t get it to us and not shown up… We continue to be impressed with the quality and fortitude of Ecuadorians.
The GE oven has temperature controls!
After he was done installing it, he went over the controls in detail with us. It was particularly helpful that he spoke English, so we could ask more detailed questions and get answers we fully understood. With this oven, we dial in the temperature we want, then press start. The digital LED shows the current temperature of the oven, so we know just when it has reached full temp. No need for an extra internal oven thermometer (which is what most people use for their Indura ovens). There is even a meat probe that can be used, and the front indicator will then give a constant readout of the meat’s internal temperature.
It also has lots of controls for broil, convection bake, normal bake, defrost (I’ve never seen that on an oven before), steam clean (another new one to me), programmed start, etc.
Let the baking begin!
PS: Part of the agreement in buying this, was that the installer would cart our old Indura oven away. True to their word, he put it on his had cart and took it down the five flights of stairs. Edison (our building security guard) happened to see him about to leave the building and asked if he could have the oven. We would always rather have someone use an item, and that saved the installer from having to carry it back to the store, so we agreed. Edison was last seen reading over the instruction manual (which the people who sold us the condo were smart enough to keep and leave) and seeming quite happy to get a free oven. ☺