Dave has a mistress. On Saturday morning around 10:30 a.m., I told him I knew exactly what was going on. Did he think I wouldn't notice how distracted he was? How he was making excuses to leave me with the kids so he could lavish her with attention?
I can't even compete. She's in my kitchen right now. She’s not going anywhere….
…because she weighs 650 pounds.
Meet Ina. She's sturdy, hardly shy, and looooves to make prime rib.
The Capital Culinarian 48-inch self-cleaning range. Ours has a third pair of burners in place of the grill.
Ina is a Capital Culinarian, a pro-style range with 6 burners and a griddle. After years of mulling popular pro-style options like Wolf and Viking, followed by a few months exploring lesser-knowns like Dacor and Bluestar, we saw a Capital in person and knew it was right. We love cooking things that need to be seared, pan-fried, and slow-simmered, and we liked the flat grates and open burner (not sealed) system that evenly distributes the flame and gives us complete control over the heat.
For a while, a copper-hued range from the Bluestar Precious Metals Collection was my frontrunner. I loved the Bluestar’s open burners and badass style options, including the ability to customize knob color and door-swing orientation.
Copper love.
But after playing with a Bluestar in person at a local showroom, we quickly shifted gears. The metal construction felt thin and flimsy, and every custom option I wanted raised the price by a big notch.
Tinkering with the showroom model of the Capital, on the other hand, we kept discovering awesome feature after awesome feature. The grate and burner assemblies come completely apart, so if you're like me and tend to let pots boil over, you can take everything off and clean every last crevice underneath. There are easy-slide drip pans that catch big spills. There's convection on one of the two ovens, speeding up cooking time for big roasts and gratins, and the racks are on wheels and cantilevered, so you can easily slide your pan out to check doneness.
And then, after we were already smitten, we saw this button on the right:
Schwing.
It was like getting a new girlfriend and then finding out she has a lake house. With jet skis. Dave couldn't sign the credit card slip fast enough.
Now that she’s taken up residence in our home, it’s clear she’s more Dave’s sweetheart than mine. This is what I cooked the first day she was plugged in:
No backsplash yet.... Coming soon!
Later that night, Dave had a go. He made a Spanish-inspired fried chicken with smoked paprika and crispy panko crust. Seriously. I should have known something was up.
Then, on Saturday morning, he announced the following on Instagram:
Dawning of a new era.
And last night, I came home to this:
Food tastes better when it rotates.
I guess Ina and I are going to have to be sister wives. Mondays he sleeps with me, Tuesdays with her, and so forth. As long as that rotisserie keeps cranking, she and I, well, we have an understanding.
Anyone have any great rotisserie recipes? What should Ina tackle next? Let me know in the comments...