KITCHEN RANGES
25 June 2008
"A Year for Provence"
One of the more charming books I’ve read was A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle. It deals with an Englishman and his wife moving to that district in the south of France (near the French Riviera) and making a new home for themselves. What particularly struck my fancy, beyond the delightfulness of the people,
the region, and the book itself, was Mayle’s many descriptions of the cuisine. The French, of course, have always been renowned for their cooking, and reading Mayle, it’s all one can do not to raid the refrigerator right then and there. If truth be told, about all that kept me from doing so was knowing that the leftover meatloaf was really not the same thing at all.
With that as background, then, I couldn’t help developing an interest in the Diva de Provence range, as it is just what it purports to be, a product of Provence, which they describe in their literature as a "southern Mediterranean province among a landscape of abundant farms, vineyards, olives trees, and truffles that inevitably turn meals into a gastronomic feast for all who visit and all who live there."
So, any cooking equipment that comes fro
m a place like that, and is supported with a brochure with phrases like that, just has to be the stuff, right? Well, maybe.
Even though I write a lot about stoves these days, and am myself a cook, I am not entirely convinced that a stove necessarily makes that much difference to one’s cooking. As a former Army cook and one who was a bachelor for a decade, I have used every kind of stove from the very nice to the "you’ve got to be kidding me" and managed to get good results.
The Diva de Provence, though, is not really your average stove. They started 
by making stoves for commercial kitchens, and then branched out into residential uses, but they’ve done more than just plop a commercial range into a home kitchen. They’ve reconfigured the line, including a line of stoves that are actually kitchen islands with as many as four ovens, warming cabinets, and built-in cutting boards. They even throw in a kitchen sink! More than that, the stove cabinets come with a choice of brushed stainless steel or baked enamel with brass or nickel trim. So, that’s the good news.
The other bit of news, though, is the prices, which range from pretty reasonable—only $3000 for the convection cooktop—to the insane, namely $45,995 for the yellow stove featured here. In the case of the latter, it does include shipping to the site, but even so, for many of us, we have to ask ourselves if we’re willing to save a year for Provence.
Joseph
No comments yet