Oh, by the way, we don't own a microwave: that's right, you can, in fact, survive without a microwave

Yeah, I historically get one of two responses:

• A funny look of skepticisim with a verbal or implied, "Huh?"
• "Oh, yeah!  We haven't had one for years!"
• please remember that I'm in Austin, TX

Why would we subject ourselves to this? 

Honestly, our current kitchen is super f-in' small.


During the apartment search, we learned 2 things about the Austin area:

• It is insanely rare to find a one-bedroom without the bathroom in the bedroom
• (I'm sorry, I don't need friends/family crashing from out of town coming into our bedroom in the middle of the night)
• If you're paying less than $1,000/month, and want to be decently close to the city, you're getting a galley kitchen
• Accept it and move on
• If, freakishly, your experience has been different, don't tell me; it'll just make me sad

We were able to find an apartment with a pretty open layout, bathroom outside of the bedroom, and a look-through in the galley kitchen.  Yay!

 How has this affected our eating habits?

Well, just about all of our formal cooking is on the stove or oven, save for popcorn.  A family friend gave us an air-popper from our registry, and it's wonderful.

The only thing I think I'll have issue with is edamame.  It's been forever since I've had it, but the best way to prepare it at home is in a microwave.

Reheating
It's a bit more labor-intensive.  Depending on what it is, a little water may be needed to help the process, or we use the oven.

For pizza, I prefer reheating in the oven.  I find it can get pretty soggy in the microwave, since the water is what is being affected in there.

And, honestly, I sometimes will eat things cold.  Usually this is because I'm too tired/lazy to put forth more effort, but some things taste good cold.  It's given me a new appreciation for how temperature affects the flavor of foods.  Cold food, for me, isn't nearly as potent as warm, which is also something to remember if you're wanting to make something to serve cold or straight-up freeze.

Unexpected benefits

Yes, there are some benefits to doing this...at least for us.  I really love food, and I married the person who introduced me to butter/ (again, I lived with older folks--it was smart balance and fleischmann's).  So, if we don't keep it in check, we could easily turn into heffers.


Time:

• It's not so easy to just heat something up. 
• I'm forced to think about what the hell I want to eat that I'm willing to put forth effort in making.
• If I've just finished eating, it takes longer to make something else.
• My belly has time to let my brain realize that I'm not actually hungry enough to eat that entire pint of ice-cream

Microwave snacks/meals:

• I often hear people talk about how much sodium/preservatives/(insert other scary, health/figure-threatening thing) there are in pre-packaged foods
• Ha!  I have no means to prepare most of them
• When I heated my lunch up at my internships, my meal took less time
• Usually, my meal had different portions that didn't ALL need to be heated
• I only need 30-45 seconds to reheat my artichoke hearts sauteed with garlic
• I got to avoid the hostile line of hungry folks waiting to shove their meals into the microwave

I'm sure I'll find more spiffy things, but that's all I have the patience for right now.