A post about microwaves, written while hungry.

We don't have a microwave. It's not out of some high-minded (easily debunkable) ideal of what constitutes healthy eating. It's that the apartment didn't have one, and we've decided against spending the counterspace to get one.

It's completely fine, save two instances. First, popcorn. Sometimes you just don't want to pull out the kettle and make a zeppelin sized sack just to watch a television show.



Second, leftovers. We have some bhindi from a really good dinner the other day. Right now it is reheating in the stove (with some spinach naan in the oven). This dirties up a pan, a cookie sheet, and the plate, instead of just popping the whole carry out container into the nukebox and calling it a day.

So I sit, writing a blog entry and filling the house with the smell of cardamom, waiting for lunch. Thinking of lunch. Getting ever hungrier. Building up anticipation for eating, rather than just shoveling atomic-hot okra into my gaping maw.

There was the option to eat the leftovers cold. This occasionally works, but not so much with Indian food. I find the naan gets a bleachy flavor, and everything else feels coagulated. Indian food needs to be warm for me.

The pan is starting to lightly sizzle, so I'm covering it and turning down the heat instead of flipping it. Not shoving the whole box into the microwave also allows me to set aside the chunk of rice that has become completely solidified in raita. When microwaved, the yogurt sauce just kind of melts into the rice, disappearing. But having it separate allows me to use the raita as intended: to correct the mistake of getting three-star-hot food.

Only a few times has lack of a microwave changed out eating plans. There has been a dinner that was switched from chicken to pancakes because I forgot to thaw the bird. That would have been fixed with a microwave. Sometimes lunch is a can of tuna just because I don't want to boil a hot dog for the kids.

I'll also say that microwaving runs the risk of the outlier rice kernel. That one lone rice that sits on the edge of the tray or in the fold in the container and turns to solid teeth-shattering rock. It never stays on the edge, and gets mixed into the food so that you have a Surprise! crunch right in the middle of a mouthful of curry. The covering on the stove helps with that.

So, now my food is ready. In all, we're okay being microwave-free. Of course, now that I'm sitting here, I also see that we have avocados. I'm going to eat one of those too. Happy lunch.