flea- A friend of mine moved from the US to Berlin a few years ago. (His mother is German so he'd spent time there over the years.) I'm sure he could answer some questions his experiences & cost of living stuff. If you'd like I can send him an email and put you in touch with him; let me know.

Everyone in my family got glass-topped stoves in the last few years, I don't know why. But they all gave me the pots and pans they couldn't use anymore, so, nice for me.

I would love to convert my electric stove to gas, but I assume that's immensely expensive. And I kind of love my wacky cast-iron repro to look like a wood stove monstrosity, even if it is all electric.

Cooking by magnetic induction is pretty nifty. Useless for lighting cigarettes, though.

I remember some sort of contingency for if you can't sell being a big deal for Cash and maybe some others around here when they had a job move.

For the love of all that's holy, in this housing market--get a deal where they buy your house if you can't sell it. OR they pay part of your mortgage until you do. Our deal was that it had to be on the market for three months before they would buy it. It ended up taking six months and we paid two mortgages for three months but they eventually reimbursed us for that expense.

Not all companies CAN do this but if they can't or won't, try for a hiring bonus which would help defray the cost of paying for another house until it sells.

But they all gave me the pots and pans they couldn't use anymore, so, nice for me.

What couldn't they use anymore? Woks and what?

I can never figure out how to do that, Jesse. Sorry!

no worries -- you can't reblog right to the Good Stuff, I don't think.

It's true that the electric oven is shockingly right on the money wrt the times listed in recipes, which is totally new to me -- my last oven door didn't even close all the way, so everything was a crap shoot. but i still hate the flat stovetop.

Wait, certain types of pots and pans don't work on glass-topped stoves? Seriously? How's that?

I wonder if these could be induction? Magnetic induction burners induce heat in steel pots. Non-ferrous pots and pans never heat on induction stove tops. But glass tops in general, new to me too.

I think my ideal stove/oven combo would be gas burners, but an electric oven. Induction burners I think I could live with.

I have a flat stovetop and all my pots and pans from my previous electric oven work just fine. I didn't have a wok then either, because I figure they only work right with flame.

There are glass-topped stoves that have a heating element under a layer of glass so everything is sealed and easy to clean - those are fine with normal pots and pans. And then there are glass-topped stoves that do some kind of magical magnetic induction woo, that stay cool until they heat up instantly, and are run by invisible elves. Those only work with steel or iron, since aluminum/pyrex/copper/other materials won't make the right kind of connection to make the elves do their thing.

Me, I'm all about the gas. It was pretty much reason #1 to buy a goddamn house already.

My parents have a glass-topped electric stove. I HATE IT LIKE BURNING.

Such a terrible stove to cook on, which doesn't bother them because the extent of Dad's cooking is the occasional pot of spaghetti.