And so it begins...

The Old Range
...The kitchen renovation, that is.

Yes, after many years of putting up with a kitchen the size of most Americans' shoe closets, I've decided to throw down the gauntlet. Time for a kitchen renovation... God help us.

One of the first steps was to replace the old range, a GE model from 1995, with a brand new Bosch 700 Series Evolution Gas Range. The old model's oven died in May and so I've been pan-searing/sauteeing/boiling/steaming since then. No roasting. As someone who loves cooking, this situation was completely unacceptable. Luckily, we had a toaster oven, but man did I have to jam that roast chicken in there. When it came out, it certainly didn't look like chicken anymore...


The New Range
Well, after procrastinating a long time and researching a lot, I decided on the range shown above. Whereas the old one had a hard time getting water to boil, this one can basically send the Space Shuttle into orbit with 16K BTU of power. When I first turned this on, the paint on my ceiling peeled. The next time my upstairs neighbor gets noisy, I'm turning this sucker on and letting his floor melt.

I made our first meal on it tonight, a quick saute of chicken, vegetables, garlic and pasta. Easy right? Well, apparently there's a learning curve with this new-fangled thing. The chicken was over-cooked, the pasta slightly mushy, the pan handles got very hot, so I've got some adapting to do. I am worried about my next omelette.


The Old Kitchen with the New Range
In any case, the next step(s) will be taking down the wall shown on the right-hand side of the picture, replacing it with a peninsula with storage cabinets underneath. All the cabinets in the kitchen will be replaced by custom-made ones, and a new granite countertop is being cut as I write these words. Yay!

I'll keep updating this blog with the work as it progresses (or doesn't), and I estimate we should be done in, say, 2012.

To celebrate, we opened a bottle of 2002 Jacques Frederic Mugnier Chambolle Musigny, a lovely, elegant and almost subtly poetic wine. Very light-bodied, it was just full of that lovely Burgundian funk, with cherries and light raspberries filling the palate on an elegant frame, its acidity just washing out the mouth and prepping you for the next glass. Beautiful, finesse defined. God, I love Burgundy!
Cheers!