I’m willing to bet that 95% of the people reading this own a microwave. It might have come with the home, or maybe you inherited it from someone upgrading their appliances, or maybe your parents sent you into the world with one, a parting gift of ultimate practicality. Back in 2018, Kate Bernot gave us all a peek into her microwave-less life and was careful to reassure those who balked at the decision.
“My choice to live sans microwave is just a counter-surface-to-utility equation,” she wrote. “Given my precious kitchen space, I want to devote it to other priorities like a coffee grinder, fruit basket, and herb planter.”
This is a fair argument, though it fails to highlight the sheer breadth of tasks that a microwave can handle. If you think of your own microwave as nothing more than a tool for reheating coffee or popping popcorn, you’re missing out on a whole lot of other quick-as-a-wink cooking feats that could be making your life easier.
That’s why, all this week on The Takeout, we’ll be celebrating Microwave Week, featuring content intended to rekindle your relationship with that most ubiquitous of countertop appliances. By the end of this week, we hope to get you looking at your microwave in a whole new way, because if it’s going to take up that kind of kitchen real estate, it’d better offer you the world in return.