Wolf's Lair

It should surprise nobody that I love my Wolf cooker.

Yes, yes - Americans call them stoves. But my Wolf is so much more than a stove!

Quite a lot of my self-esteem is bound up in the behemoth that anchors the west wall of the kitchen - that, indeed, anchors one whole end of the house. If a tornado comes roaring up the street, strewing everything in its path like matchsticks and spreading destruction far and wide, I am confident the Wolf will serve as a beacon for first-responders, firmly planted exactly where it was installed, impervious to driving rains and tempestuous winds. 'All-shaking thunder, strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!' exhorted King Lear. But he never saw my cooker.

A big comforting stove has always been part of my dream kitchen. In England and Scotland, where we lived for many years, I was envious of friends and rels who owned Agas and Rayburns - not that many did, as these cast iron leviathans are fiendishly expensive and mind-bogglingly impractical for all but the largest flagstone-floored farmhouse kitchens. The really awesome ones are fueled with coal and, since they are always fired up, can double as boilers with which to power the central heating. We briefly looked into the possibility of installing a Rayburn when we bought our first house in a Borders village outside Edinburgh. The plumber came to have a look and shook his head sadly. Not only would we have needed to reinforce the floor to take the weight of even the smallest offering but, given the diminutive size of our kitchen, a second (electric) cooker would have been needed in the summer months to avoid the problem of roasting us while we slept upstairs. So a Cooker That Makes a Statement remained a fantasy and nothing more.

Then we moved to the States and our current house, and belatedly discovered the entire kitchen was one big fire-code violation. Our gas stove, it transpired, was in imminent danger of setting the cabinetry alight. We had several choices: go electric (shudder); lower the floor; raise the cabinets (which would have involved ripping out all the soffits together with the wiring and ductwork concealed inside); or create a horizontal gap between the stove and the cabinets to act as a primitive yet effective fire-break. This was easily the most practical solution and we set to work removing the cabinets and counters from one of the kitchen walls, leaving a six-foot void where the old stove and fridge used to be. The question of how to fill such a tempting space arose not long afterwards.

Around the same time, I experienced the jet-engine power of a Garland industrial range, owned and operated by The Crusading Young Lawyer from the Big City in her domestic kitchen. I knew the time had come and started searching for a cosmic cooker to call my own. Reasoning that I had about forty-eight inches to work with, the choice was easy - a natural gas Wolf range, with four huge burners capable of a whopping 16,000 BTUs each (not quite a jet engine, but enough to keep a twelve-quart pot of pasta water on the boil); an infrared grill (just like in Kitchen Stadium!); a griddle (that doubles as a warming plate for delicate sauces and the like) and two ovens (people no longer have to bring their own ovens over for Christmas dinner, which is what used to happen, I kid you not). My life was changed forever.

Of course, it is possible to eat well off a hotplate or a camping stove. There are incredible chefs out there who work miracles on electric ranges half the size of my beast. We have been to fine restaurants du terroir where the entire kitchen had a footprint only slightly larger than the Wolf possesses all on its lonesome. I am the first to admit the Wolf does not make me a better cook, just a happier one.

What is practicality or necessity compared to a dream come true?

Erratum
Thanks to the sharp-eyed reader who called to my attention a flagrant error in my latest discussion of Just Desserts. It was Yigit, not Morgan, who chose as his inspiration Guy Ritchie and Madonna. Morgan chose Reggie Bush and Kim Kardashian. How could I have got this so wrong, when Moleskine clearly recorded that it was KK's bitterness that prompted Morgan's citrus gelee?

In other macaron-related news, I have two new Best in Show nominations, provided by loyal readers: Laduree in Paris (with outposts in Tokyo, Beirut, and London should one happen to be in the neighbourhood); and - on this continent - Patisserie 46 in Minneapolis (a foodie destination of which I am becoming increasingly - and jealously - aware).