This is Instant Obsession, a weekly column that dishes on all the things our editors are obsessed with right now. From tableware and gorgeous furniture to luxe moisturizer and well-appointed hotels, here's what we're currently dreaming about.
Feeding others is my love language. As a mother juggling a lot of responsibility—and the constant anxiety of letting others down—I’ve always felt like providing my family with fresh, balanced, and tasty meals meant that I was doing at least something right. (Yes, I was that new parent who cooked all baby food from scratch—for my first child, at least). But if I’m being honest with myself, my passion for cooking is not entirely altruistic: It’s also a stress-relieving expression of creativity for me at the end of a long day or week.
Believe it or not, I even found joy in cooking for my family while we lived in our last house, a ranch-style home with a kitchen that had not been updated since it was first designed in 1967. Think: brown laminate countertops, a squatty refrigerator (by squatty, I mean I had to squat to reach anything inside), and an electric cooktop with coils that took over 20 minutes to bring a pot of water (and a small one, at that) to a boil. That kitchen didn’t stop me from hosting holiday meals and parties or cooking as many weeknight suppers for my family as I could. But it did slow me down—a lot. I remember setting aside 4-5 hours most Sundays to cook reheat-able meals for the following 4-5 nights. (Thank goodness we had a powerful microwave.)
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We started planning for a kitchen renovation shortly after moving into that house, but one thing led to another, and the kitchen redo blossomed into a complete gut of the entire house. Five years in to designing—and saving for—that renovation, we took a sharp left turn and instead bought another house, one with higher ceilings, a better floorplan for our family, and no kitchen appliances. Yes, you read that correctly—the previous owners had sold them at an estate sale before listing the house.
For the kitchen renovation that we planned but never did, I had done a lot of research into induction ranges. Our architect, Anna Evans, drew plans that called for a 48-inch range with a nearly 5-foot-wide window as a backsplash. (It was one of many brilliant ways she planned to brighten up our low-ceilinged structure.) Because the window would be wood, induction proved a safer option than a gas range with an open flame.
Mind you, this was several years before interest in induction cooking really heated up, and certainly before states like California and New York proposed restrictions on the use of fossil fuels like natural gas. Frankly, it was not so easy to find many induction range options—especially in 48-inch widths. And while concerns about energy efficiency (because they only heat the cookware, induction ranges don’t waste energy heating the surrounding air) and air quality (they emit zero toxic gases or fumes) weren’t why I first considered induction, the more I learned about how much more efficient and cleaner induction cooking is, the more committed to it became. So, when planning the kitchen renovation in our new house, I was relieved to already have the perfect starting point: an AGA Elise 48” Induction Range.
Working with designer Anne Turner Carroll of ATC Interiors & Designs and our contractor Chris Franks of Franks Building Company, we designed a more functional layout with the range aligned directly opposite the sink. Since it was the first purchase I made, it truly served as a style foundation for kitchen as well. Its glossy black finish grounds the airy neutral space, and its mixed finishes (brushed brass knobs, stainless trim and handles) set the tone for mixing other metals throughout, from our unlacquered brass cabinetry hardware to our polished nickel faucets from Brizo. We kept everything else simple and streamlined with a drywall-covered vent hood and a quartzite backsplash in the same materials as our countertops to allow the range to really shine.
Even after all the research I’d done on induction cooking, I was still in for a surprise when I cooked our first weeknight supper (Ina Garten’s Weeknight Bolognese, of course) on the new range: It makes cooking so much fun for our entire family. It brings water to a boil in as fast two minutes (I kid you not), yet also allows for easily adjustable precision for simmering and medium-heat cooking. Furthermore, the cooktop surface remains cool to the touch, alleviating worries about little helpers’ hands—and making cleanup, often my husband’s job, so much easier and faster. Finally, the range is equipped with three separate ovens (an electric multifunction oven with seven settings, a convection oven, and a glide-out broiler), which means I can roast veggies at one temperature while baking cookies in the convection oven at another.
It’s no wonder architects and designers have predicted induction cooking as a cornerstone of the future of the American house. With how much fun our new range has made weeknight cooking for my family, it’s safe to say I’m officially obsessed.
