I just got off the phone with Kirsten, who in turn just got off the phone with our favourite manager at Trail Appliances, and we're having our new stove delivered on Saturday! Yay!

It's a 30" Kitchenaid convection oven in stainless steel (thus completing our trifecta of stainless steel appliances), with built-in conversion software (which means we don't have to figure out the rocket science of convection cooking right away), a warming drawer, and - and this is the thing that sold me completely - controls on the front of the unit. No reaching over a hot element or a pot of boiling water to turn it on/off.

It also has a hidden stove element, which will make cleaning the stove SO MUCH EASIER. One of the reasons, aside from the fact that our current stove doesn't have a self clean mode, that we don't clean our stove more often is because it's a complete pain in the ass to do so. The hidden element, along with the three self-clean modes (including a quick mode) should make our lives a little better.

I'm a little nervous about the ceramic top, but after living for 2 years with a wobbly, off-balanced coil-top stove, I'm more than ready to switch. The model we're getting is a scratch and dent one and already has a scratched top - however, as part of our purchase price (still well below the MSRP), we're getting a new top shipped over. It does promise to be nifty, though, as it has preset settings for "Melt" and "Warm".

It's not very useful for us 99% of the time, but something that will be extremely useful when our friend Irit comes to visit is a built-in Sabbath mode. Sabbath mode is a "workaround" for the Sabbath declaration that no appliances be used -- it maintains the oven at a constant temperature so that you can warm food without breaking the Sabbath. We're not Jewish, but our friend Irit -- a rabbi -- is, and it would be nice to be able to keep her from breaking the Sabbath on our behalf.

Also, as an added bonus, we get a class on using the convection oven from Trail for free. Colour me stupidly giddy!

I'll post some pictures of our new kitchen toy after it's installed on Saturday. I'm looking forward to starting to cook on a new, modern stove... let's hope it doesn't screw up my cooking abilities!