My Favorite Kitchen Appliance

A couple people commented on my last post asking for more details about our Flavorwave.   So here’s the story.   Three years ago, my husband saw an infomercial on tv for the Flavorwave.   He was very impressed, but I was skeptical.   I assumed that it wouldn’t be as great as they made it look, and told him I had no interest in adding an appliance to our limited counter space.  

The next week, he called an ordered it anyway, and then told me it was on its way.   I was not at all pleased, and told him that he had wasted $130 (that was the total price, including shipping).   The Flavorwave arrived a few days later, and the heat lamp was broken, so it barely warmed anything up at all.   My ranting continued.   My husband called the company, and within three days we had a new heat lamp delivered, and the Flavorwave was working as promised.  

The Flavorwave is a joke between us now, because I was so opposed to getting it, and now I don’t know how I would cook without it.   It uses a heat lamp and a fan to cook foods, and it works exactly as they say it does.   The only thing that we didn’t really like in the Flavorwave was steak – we just prefer our outdoor grill for that, although the Flavorwave did cook it just fine, we didn’t like the taste as much.   But I have not defrosted chicken or fish in three years.   We buy fish fillets at Costco and I just plunk two frozen fillets in the Flavorwave and 18 minutes later they are cooked perfectly.   We use it to cook frozen veggie patties too.   And I make air-cooked french fries out of sliced potatoes and sweet potatoes that always turn out fantastic.   I’ve never gotten as ambitious as the people on the infomercial – no full roasted chickens in our house – but we use our Flavorwave about 4 or 5 times a week.   It has lasted three years with no problems, and when it does give out someday, I will be ordering a new one asap.  

So that’s my story on the Flavorwave.   I am not getting paid to write this, and I don’t know anything about the product other than my own experience with my machine.   I’m not guaranteeing that everyone would love one of these things, only that I do.   This is the only thing we have ever bought from an infomercial, and we are not gadget hounds.   On  our kitchen counter,  wehave a food processor, a steamer, a toaster, and the Flavorwave.   That’s it.   We also have a juicer that we keep under the counter.   I’m generally not a fan of extra kitchen appliances, but this one has been well worth the counter space it takes up.