A few months ago I heard that bone broth, in particular, undergoes grievous structural protein changes in the microwave. As I’ve been making more and more things with broth, I adjusted to the minor inconvenience of reheating food on my stove. Why spend hours simmering free-range goodness only to Frankenfood it later? So I mostly only was using it for random things like reheating coffee.

But the main reason to throw out the nukeolator was that the mica shield (stopping radioactive rays?!) had been damaged a long time ago, and had a big hole in it! I don’t even want to think about what nasty things I absorbed from using it “unshielded” for months.

It’s headed for the recycling center this weekend – thanks!

You tip about heating several little bites in a toaster oven was good. (Isn’t the toaster oven fantastic? You can bake muffins in summer without making your kitchen an inferno, or roast a handful of green beans whenever the mood strikes you. Now that’s an indispensable appliance!)

You can also warm up several kinds of food separately in a large pan, with a sprinkling of water – although there will be a little bit of intermingling. It works well for Thanksgiving leftovers and so forth.

Happy to have you along for the ride! Butter can hang out on your counter just fine, as long as you get through a stick in less than, say, a month. (?) I’ve only had butter go rancid once, and it was out of the fridge for a LOOOOONG time. (btw, you’ll KNOW if it goes bad. Yikes.) Just leave it in a butter dish out of the fridge. Toaster ovens are super helpful for avoiding the microwave, but nothing you can’t do in a big oven…it just seems like a big commitment to turn on the real oven for one thing. I still think heating *most* things is faster in a pot on the stove, esp. if you have a gas range. Best of luck! Katie

It is funny how we have come to consider the mic as a standard kitchen appliance. My mom was telling me that we got our first one when I was 8. I said, “What did you do before that?!”