Peter Brooks wrote:

>
> - Are there any real lemons that I should avoid?
>
Not that I am aware of but: my mother has an oven made by Stoves, my
mother-in-law one made by De Dietrich and I have one made by Bosch:

Observations: I can remove both doors from the Bosch oven and, AFAIK,
so can M-I-L. My mother cannot remove the doors from the Stoves unit -
a pain when it comes to cleaning them. The De Dietrich has an 'at
temperature' alarm which would be great if the clock etc worked - it has
never worked and M-I-L has given up attempting to have it repaired -
she has had two or three clock modules. The De Dietrich also has a
self-clean function which caused the door glass to shatter on it's first
use. The repairman advised her not to use the self clean function! We
would have bought a NEFF oven had we not been given the Bosch unit. We
found getting spare racks etc from Bosch reaaly easy. That's about it
for ovens.


We have a NEFF 5 burner gas hob which we bough in preference to an
induction hob because (a) I'm inclined to crash the pans about and
feared that I would break the glass induction hob surface and (b)
because it is the same model as a friend who is a professional chef
uses. However, it has burners which only produce flame around the
perimeter of the burner - OK on the small burners but not good on the
biggest burners - no flame in the centre of big pots.

Mother was persauded to have a a gas hob, by NEFF IIRC, which did not
have infinite gas control and, having cooked on electricity all her
married life quickly replaced it with a conventional electric hob, by
Whirlpool IIRC.


>
> - I'll probably go for a standard four ring stove top. However, I
> like the idea of induction hobs.


I also like ceramic hobs. Has any
> manufacturer been sensible enough to produce a hybrid with a couple
> of conventional ceramic hob plates (for glass, aluminum etc.) and a
> couple of induction plates for cast iron and so forth? If so, who has
> done this?
>

NEFF used to have a range called 'Domino' which enabled you to mix and
match - gas, electric, griddles, BBQ things - electrically heated rocks,
WOK burners etc. M-I-L had a pair of twin electric units and a deep fat
fryer. This was replaced with a De Dietrich haolgen hob. Nightmare
thing with a touch control panel that regularly stops working 'cos it
becomes too hot - on account of being close to the hob apparently!!!!

NEFF or De Dietrich make free satnding induction hobs - as seen in my
chef friend's kitchen.

Given another go at it I would go down the Domino route (cash permitting!)



HTH

Richard