Is Planned Obsolescence all there is?

Today I'm cooking without my air fryer.

Over the weekend our 3-year-old air fryer broke, blinking incessantly with a vague error message. E sent an email to the manufacturer asking about repairs, but I fully expect to get a response along the lines of: your appliance is no longer under warranty, here’s $10 off to buy a new one. Fat chance! Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice? You can’t.

I’ve enjoyed the convenience of an air fryer— who wouldn’t ? It heats up so fast without turning my West-facing kitchen into a sweltering Hell hole and it’s pretty nice to cook in small amounts without feeling obligated to fill up an absolutely honkin’ oven. But I don’t love the convenience enough to produce such a large amount of trash every 2.5-5 years. Yes, that’s the average life expectancy of an air fryer.

I spent the bulk of my adult life cooking with only an oven, stove, rice cooker, mini food processor and stand mixer (luxury! could be replaced with a sturdy whisk!), and I don’t mind that set up one bit. Granted, using it again will change the time of day that I cook and the volume in which I prep, but life is change, baby. And sometimes change means backtracking to things that work. So for the foreseeable future, catch me huffing gas as I process almost everything in an indestructible pan or pot on a very old range that seems like it might outlive me.

For dinner tonight: cucumber quick pickles, marinated in the fridge all day with salt, sugar and rice vinegar. Over white rice with lima beans in a fragrant sauce made of onion, carrot, garlic, ginger and gochujang. Toasted sesame seeds, green onions and a drizzle of sesame oil to garnish.