IMO, most things are tastier roasted w/o fat than cooked stovetop w/o fat. Exceptions are things that cook really fast - shrimp - and things you don't actually want cooked evenly - steak/tuna/potstickers.

Dry cooking methods concentrate flavors by evaporating moisture & browning surfaces. In a pan, you have heat coming from one direction, so if you want even cooking you have to stand at the stove and monitor your ingredient, turning it, shaking the pan, etc. Or you can stick the whole thing in the oven where it's surrounded by even ambient heat and leave it there until it's done. So even if you can "pan-roast" almost anything you can oven-roast, the oven saves you a lot of active cooking time.

Oddly, for a place with no theater department or major, and very little in the way of facilities or encouragement, we've turned out quite a number of performing grads in the past ten years! Brad Cooper and Birbigs being two of the better known, but as I said, I hear several of the folks are having some minor fame.

Corn on the cob roasted is awesome. Unfortunately, I have not yet figured out how to do this with a broiler in such a manner as it fails to catch my house on fire. I have done it successfully on a grill, however.

My grandparents' neighbor used to sometimes cook with the dishwasher. Corn on the cob was one of those things. Wrapped well in foil, all of it. I'm pretty sure it was a novelty approach. Cause, really.

I've had salmon cooked in the dishwaser. It was good.

That just can't be efficient. How about cooking on air-conditioning units? Hm. I wonder if there's a way to channel heat from air-conditioners into an oven (or just a ceramic box) for cooking without risking damage to the air-conditioner?

Yeah, if you want to steam, just steam in a pot! People are funny.

ION, I'm watching African American Lives from PBS, and it totally makes me want to do geneology! I want to know about my family's Honky American lives!

Hee. I've been researching my family. Found a few interesting things -- my several-greats grandfather is listed on an 1866 census on the town they lived in in Poland as "szpekulant," which translates as, basically, "con-artist." (Nobody's quite sure why this is what would be put down on an official form. One of my Polish friends found a reference that the word used to just mean "invester," but it seems to have taken on the modern meaning earlier than that census.)

Also, found a set of siblings listed on a 1909 ship manifest as Rifke, Alte Itzig Leib, Menashe, Mechel, and Gitel, and then on the 1910 census as Beckie, Isador, Moses, Max, and Gussie. Really curious about how that name change played out so quickly. Also curious about how Gitel/Gussie took to it -- she was just four years old.

Oh, on the savings thing -- I've got no debt, but also relatively little savings. Well, I've got some savings, but some of it I don't really count, because that's earmarked for summer rent and food, since I generally don't earn much money in the summers.

Really, debt worries me more than lack of savings does. I know that, in a pinch, I can get money -- though I'd hate to do it, if I really needed it, my parents would lend me some, or I could get a loan, or something. And while a loan would charge interest, potential interest in the future is less worrisome than actual interest now.

Found a few interesting things -- my several-greats grandfather is listed on an 1866 census on the town they lived in in Poland as "szpekulant," which translates as, basically, "con-artist."

That's kind of awesome. I wonder if he actually was a con artist, trying to get the government to think he was an invester -- a little mini-con on The Man.