Last Tuesday, I took a look at my microwave and saw that I have wasted both my time and effort turning a frozen lasagna into molten goo via radiation. The lasagna was glowing, and indeed appeared potently as if some parts of it were partially melting, but nowhere near what I was expecting it to be. The cheese seemed to cling on to one side while the rest of the dish was laden with sauce and frozen bits of cheese. My microwave continues to confound me in how it rips for apart food instead of cooking them. It is far too advanced for its own good.
I vividly recall the day I made the decision to buy a microwave. It was a certainty that I made based on my confidence in the endless mountains of advertising microwaves received proclaiming that the products would help improve the standard of living by eliminating the need to “cook” for hours on end. “Dinner in minutes!” they hollered off some ad. I do agree that dinner was ever-so-slightly served within minutes, but telling time is an entirely different matter when you are greeted half-ski jacket zipped, thermostat overheated potatoes straight out of the oven. And indeed, my household microwave too, did not half serve potatoes and instead opted to ignore them entirely and stored them in the oven.
My Kitchen Demon has been with me for thirty years now. Three decades ago, I purchased my first model. This one had a beige color, looked like a small monster, and made a jet engine-like humming noise. Like most of my appliances, it consumed a lot of counter space. I treated the microwave with caution on par with someone handiling advanced alien technology, which meant reading the user manual front to back. The first test was reheating coffee and obliterating it into a million pieces.
Now, When I say that coffee didn’t explode in the way you need cosmetic surgery after, I’m saying it didn’t blow up in dramatic theater style. But rather, it exploded in the more foolish way where it would go on to cover every surface imaginable e.g. the floors, walls, and yes the ceiling, my kitchen included. This was my very first experience with microwaves and their false expectations. Every time I pressed the button, I would not magically receive molecules, but rather a shoddy half a dance, half stampede chaos.
In hindsight, I honestly felt as if I was in a toxic relationship where I was bound to go back and embrace my microwave oven. I exclusively told myself it was a self-pitying issue concerning self-microwaving appliances, which made me incompetent. I convinced myself that self-teaching and navigating the tricky symbols on the panel followed by the clash between the wattage and the cooking time along with the ‘stirring and resting’ intervals battled a demon machine.
Thirty years on, I am still yet to come close to actually acquiring these skills. Only last night, my pitiful dinner was yet another poor effort in a long line of microwave catastrophes. The packaging had made ridiculous claims, cross-marketing phrases like “gourmet quality” and “best food anyone has ever eaten.” The image suggested something that, while clearly intended for elite clientele, would certainly look rather extravagant on a lavish plate in an upscale restaurant.
“Remove the box, pierce film, microwave on high for 4 minutes, rest for 1 minute, and enjoy,” seemed effortless enough. Like every handy, step-by-step guide, the word enjoy was somehow left unexplained and, in my case, underscores a far-too-optimistic assumption. Why go through the ordeal of having to pretend something edible was presented to me after removing from the whole spacing microwave?
Unappetizing doesn’t fully capture the essence of a painter’s tomato sauce. Tried and hated it with a passion It used to be my go-to, but now I’ve come to view it as something that can’t be categorized as food. It simply dissolves my stomach. Makes me want to weep.
Fire charred the edges rendering it impossible to identify as food. The cheese turned horrid, it’s now some oil-like rubbery whatchamacallit that I am sure will withstand the test of time.
Every single meal comes with the unprecedented risk of being ruined. I am appalled that one of the easiest foods to prepare, like ‘nuking’ popcorn, is affected by the blight I lovingly refer to as the microwave. Undeniably, every meal I prepare in the microwave gets turned into a wasteland.
The time between the pops is a sort of countdown, and once you do, my kitchen is filled with the pungent smell of burnt popcorn. If you carelessly choose to let it sit for a little too long, congratulations, you are now the owner of a bag of carbon.
One of my favorite ways to prepare popcorn is definitely a worst option at the same time. The argument is that they can be removed whenever the user wishes, but there is not a possibility that it will yield satisfying results.
That tiny embossed button on the microwave which promises perfectly popped popcorn but does nothing. The popcorn button has shown me that its sole purpose is aesthetic enhancement. There is absolutely no chance it is intended to illustrate how long a microwave should take to a popcorn.
Tom, my next-door-neighbor, is always on the positive side of things. He thinks all of these appliances still work great. With how many components exist in most devices that plug into the wall, I believe I do. He did, however, recommend me to try my hand at something this simpler.
“Simply utilize it to steam the vegetables,” he stated. I suspect he has never laid eyes on broccoli steaming in the microwave. On one occasion, I decided to experiment with soup, and for that, I went with some basic canned tomato soup. The directions were quite simple: remove it from the can, put in a microwave safe bowl, heat in microwave for 2-3 minutes, and stir after one minute.
To my surprise, he did everything as instructed. But given how excruciatingly methodical he is, I expected surprising results. To my disbelief, in this case, I had to steam my soup. When blind soup making, you should never pour that soup directly into a bowl labelled as `safety hazard’.
Speaking of safety, imagine a bowl filled with ice, soup, and one centrical point full of boiling magma. That’s what I got placed directly into my savage hands right now.
This means I can feast on what resembles soup positioned perfectly waiting to be shelved. I “guess” in this situation spending too much time considering my decisions probably wasn’t the best. Once again, it is hard to argue being microwaved is the one flaw to my exploring sides.
The default frozen burrito I had last Wednesday will be turned into a schizophrenic mess by me this Wednesday. One side will be hot enough to set off fire alarms and the other is an ice cap. Coping mechanisms have been obtained over the years. The go-to known excuse for me of “a glass goes microwaving a heating water” works now.
My microwaving skill don’t stop there, putting a water glass in the microwave with food doesn’t really heat it up almost melts it. I didn’t make up this rule, saw it online, and I believe a window of glass bearing the command fills the opposite side is absurd.
The excuse that I can throw off the mark arrangement being controlled does not ease the fact that middle shifts of strategies did over my heating regulation rely log unlike peace making. Setting boundaries on my control is surfacing as dramatically as heating regulation time limit meeting expectations.
For sure, when I am tossing something into the microwave, I clearly know that there is no food that can actually bring joy except myself coming to a level where I do not get tormented in some way. This is not too different from voting in some local harmless elections – you at least give off the impression that you are trying to mitigate a doomsday level disaster.
What is, probably, most astonishing in me is making a microwave oven where its functions do not include the even heating of food. We have put men on the moon and performed other ridiculous life feats of humanity like assembling the sequencing of the human genome, while also creating tiny computers that can be easily carried around. I still like to feel that we have some kind of cosmic joker who gets us the finger and handicaps us with the utter chaos of technology.
The microwave may in fact be a contraption that teaches us a lesson. It reminds us of the fact that no matter how advanced we think we are, a frozen burrito has the ability to beat us in the game. Besides all the smart appliances we have in our homes and carry around in our pockets, our lives still revolve around fundamental physical and chemical truths that we as human beings do not fully comprehend.
Or perhaps, it really is as streamlined as this: microwaves, like vending machines and printers, could simply be antagonistic pieces of technology that stop working at the most inconvenient times. My attention was drawn to the edges of the burnt lasagna that were at risk of sliding into the bin, when I was scooping out the melted remains of the lasagna from the bowl. To my surprise, the edges of the charred pieces above the bowl were snagging on the lip of the bin and slowly sliding into the bin.
I wanted to order something for dinner, but my clock showed that it was close to 10 PM. So, I opened the freezer one more time and grabbed a microwavable pizza. I must admit, I’m looking forward to another round of my nightly game of Russian roulette with food. The crust said something very tantalizing about what I Pizza’s the doughy lid proclaiming “Crispy crust, melty cheese!” in bright yellow lettering. Crescendoed expectations as the box displayed the mouth-watering image of an exquisitely cooked pizza. Staring at it for a few seconds was not an option, as I now had my focus set on the microwave which was blinking in excitement.
“Liar,” I took out my polystyrene and pulled the cellophane in an aggressive manner and put it inside the microwave. Setting it for four minutes, just like the instruction said. This time, however, I pressed the start button and placed my eye on the spinning turntable, eagerly awaiting whatever surprise abomination awaited my timed wager. Countless marvels of today’s era in technology aim at helping daily life and make it easier, yet somehow create an entire subcategory of new letdowns.
At least our ancestors who grilled food over an open flame had an idea of what they were getting into.
