Honey, I broke the cooker....
© 2008 - Miss Moneypenny J and K All rights reserved.
Personally, I blame it on the sausage butty.
I was clever enough to have Crunchy Nut corn flakes, but not Jay- he was a sucker for the sausages and bread- complete with a decent dose of HP sauce. After cooking him this masterpiece (what an excellent girlfriend I am) I turned off both the grill and the oven- where I had been warming his bread. I then went outside to continue my boating chores. 20 minutes later, I heard a frantic shout from the galley. Never a good sign!!
Turns out, the oven was not off. More to the point, it didn't want to turn off. The little knob on our Neptune 2000 just went round, and around and around some more- while the flames grew bigger, then smaller, but never actually went out. Oh dear. Only way to turn the oven off was to turn off the gas supply. Simply done, until we turned it back on again and gas poured out. I think it's fair to say our poor little hard working cooker has had it. So we phoned Calor Gas.
"No problem at all" they said. "We can get you a replacement part in 7-10 days and it will cost you £180 plus vat." Right. So we live on board, but we can't have any hot food or drink for seven days- or heating, as we can't turn on the gas, but we then have to pay for a new part which is half the price of a brand new cooker. And you just know that once we start playing with all those seals and things, it's just never going to be the same.
So we took the only sensible course of action we could think of- we bought a new cooker. Gulp.
Luckily it is the Southampton Boat Show this week. We had already been in yesterday, but our cooker had been working fine then so we didn't look at prices. We had to buy two more tickets to go back in again!
First stop was Calor Gas. Here they have a fantastic array of marine cookers for all sizes and budgets. Only problem was, there was too much choice. We went from a possible 2 options to dozens, not made any easier by the possibility of having a separate oven and then a gimballed grill and hob. Oh, it was so confusing! Eventually, we decided to stick with an all in one unit with a separate grill and oven. We like the fact that you can use both of these at once- whereas the inbuilt units you can only use one or the other. This brought us back to our original two choices- the Neptune 2500 or the Nelson Spinflo. The 2500 is the bigger, newer version of our 2000. It fits exactly in the same space, it uses the same shelves. We could keep our very expensive pan clamps we had bought only 2 weeks before. And it had a huge grill pan- very useful. But we didnt like the brushed-effect finish on the outside or the flimsy catch to hold the oven door shut.
On the Spinflo, we liked the finish- especially the stainless inside and out, we loved the fiddle to hold the grill pan in place- even though it was a smaller pan, and in general thought it was a more solidly built unit. But we were worried about the oven being slightly too big and not fitting into the space properly. It was such a hard choice- we were dithering for ages. They both seemed like good cookers. What to do, what to do. So, in the end, we decided to see which one we could find cheapest.....
We scoured the boat show, having realised that Calor Gas puts at least £100 on the price of any oven. We eventually found some fantastic deals and managed to find both ovens within £20 of each other. That was great news for our wallet, not so much fun for our dithering brains! I was honestly debating just living off a camping stove for the rest of our lives! (We have also bought one of these so we can avoid the panic in future of realising that we can't have a hot drink or food. Not a pleasant place to be in!) Eventually, we went for the one which to us seemed the most solidly built and safest in a big sea.
The object of our current affection is a Nelson Spinflo. Twin burners, separate grill- with a fiddle to hold in the grill pan, works with propane and butane and is stainless inside and out. It also has brilliant pan clamps (which we've already modified- so that it can hold a wok and a tall pan) and more importantly IT DOESNT NEED CLEANING! That is indeed a wonderous thing and one I'm very excited by. I'm debating buying a new cooker once a week, just to avoid the cleaning duty. Is that wrong??!! :) It's shiny and new and there's no mess anywhere!
So now we have a new toy, which is much bigger and better than our old model. All for £420! That's a bargain. Jay spent the evening drilling our galley to make space for it, but at least he can now have a coffee! And best of all, our lovely wooden tray still fits on top, and it's slightly wider than the old stove, so the wok and the kettle can be used at the same time. Brilliant!
And another day has disappeared doing everything except what we actually planned to do. Wonder if we'll ever get finished......
I was clever enough to have Crunchy Nut corn flakes, but not Jay- he was a sucker for the sausages and bread- complete with a decent dose of HP sauce. After cooking him this masterpiece (what an excellent girlfriend I am) I turned off both the grill and the oven- where I had been warming his bread. I then went outside to continue my boating chores. 20 minutes later, I heard a frantic shout from the galley. Never a good sign!!
Turns out, the oven was not off. More to the point, it didn't want to turn off. The little knob on our Neptune 2000 just went round, and around and around some more- while the flames grew bigger, then smaller, but never actually went out. Oh dear. Only way to turn the oven off was to turn off the gas supply. Simply done, until we turned it back on again and gas poured out. I think it's fair to say our poor little hard working cooker has had it. So we phoned Calor Gas.
"No problem at all" they said. "We can get you a replacement part in 7-10 days and it will cost you £180 plus vat." Right. So we live on board, but we can't have any hot food or drink for seven days- or heating, as we can't turn on the gas, but we then have to pay for a new part which is half the price of a brand new cooker. And you just know that once we start playing with all those seals and things, it's just never going to be the same.
So we took the only sensible course of action we could think of- we bought a new cooker. Gulp.
Luckily it is the Southampton Boat Show this week. We had already been in yesterday, but our cooker had been working fine then so we didn't look at prices. We had to buy two more tickets to go back in again!
First stop was Calor Gas. Here they have a fantastic array of marine cookers for all sizes and budgets. Only problem was, there was too much choice. We went from a possible 2 options to dozens, not made any easier by the possibility of having a separate oven and then a gimballed grill and hob. Oh, it was so confusing! Eventually, we decided to stick with an all in one unit with a separate grill and oven. We like the fact that you can use both of these at once- whereas the inbuilt units you can only use one or the other. This brought us back to our original two choices- the Neptune 2500 or the Nelson Spinflo. The 2500 is the bigger, newer version of our 2000. It fits exactly in the same space, it uses the same shelves. We could keep our very expensive pan clamps we had bought only 2 weeks before. And it had a huge grill pan- very useful. But we didnt like the brushed-effect finish on the outside or the flimsy catch to hold the oven door shut.
On the Spinflo, we liked the finish- especially the stainless inside and out, we loved the fiddle to hold the grill pan in place- even though it was a smaller pan, and in general thought it was a more solidly built unit. But we were worried about the oven being slightly too big and not fitting into the space properly. It was such a hard choice- we were dithering for ages. They both seemed like good cookers. What to do, what to do. So, in the end, we decided to see which one we could find cheapest.....
We scoured the boat show, having realised that Calor Gas puts at least £100 on the price of any oven. We eventually found some fantastic deals and managed to find both ovens within £20 of each other. That was great news for our wallet, not so much fun for our dithering brains! I was honestly debating just living off a camping stove for the rest of our lives! (We have also bought one of these so we can avoid the panic in future of realising that we can't have a hot drink or food. Not a pleasant place to be in!) Eventually, we went for the one which to us seemed the most solidly built and safest in a big sea.
The object of our current affection is a Nelson Spinflo. Twin burners, separate grill- with a fiddle to hold in the grill pan, works with propane and butane and is stainless inside and out. It also has brilliant pan clamps (which we've already modified- so that it can hold a wok and a tall pan) and more importantly IT DOESNT NEED CLEANING! That is indeed a wonderous thing and one I'm very excited by. I'm debating buying a new cooker once a week, just to avoid the cleaning duty. Is that wrong??!! :) It's shiny and new and there's no mess anywhere!
So now we have a new toy, which is much bigger and better than our old model. All for £420! That's a bargain. Jay spent the evening drilling our galley to make space for it, but at least he can now have a coffee! And best of all, our lovely wooden tray still fits on top, and it's slightly wider than the old stove, so the wok and the kettle can be used at the same time. Brilliant!
And another day has disappeared doing everything except what we actually planned to do. Wonder if we'll ever get finished......
Our old and very naughty cooker (having said that, it was 10 years old ad had worked perfectly during that time.
Our lovely new shiny Nelson Spinflo, which gives us lots of extra room for pots and woks!
Ooohhhh.... shiny!
Our lovely teak tray still fits securely on top of the hob- brilliant extra surface for cutting and putting things on!
One of the things we liked best is the simple yet effective fiddle to hold the grill pan in place. Genius.