07 April 2010

 

My first microwave experience

The first time I ever used a microwave oven was at my friend Brent Spencer's house, sometime in the mid-1970s. I'm pretty sure it was an Amana Radarange. Brent's father Ken, who would later go on to found the digital printing company Creo, is an engineer, and often had interesting gadgets well before the rest of us got them.

(Some examples: Ken borrowed a projection television for a few weeks, which I got to watch in their basement; was the first person I knew to have a phone in his car; and loaned us their family's TRS-80 microcomputer while they went on a long vacation in 1980.)

Anyway, the first thing Brent showed me how to make in the exotic Radarange was Triscuits with Kraft process cheese slices melted on top. I stared in wonder through the oven window as the cheese rose into what seemed like an impossibly big bubble, then popped into a goopy mess. Delicious.

Recently I did the same thing: 30 seconds on high power, with Triscuits and Kraft slices. You know what? They still tasted great.

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Comments:

i think that answers why you got cancer :(
 
Uh, no, though it's a common misunderstanding. Microwaves are not carcinogenic -- they're radio waves that vibrate water molecules, much lower frequency even than visible light. (Take a look.)

Conversely, ionizing radiation like X-rays or gamma rays (which are carcinogenic) are much, much higher frequency than visible light, and are also more energetic.

So saying you're "nuking" something in the microwave oven is completely untrue, and misleading if it makes you think that microwaves are analogous to UV, X-rays, or gamma rays.
 
To Anonymous: Shut up.
 
My first Microwave experience was taking a frozen hot dog bun and placing a fozen hot dog in it. 90 seconds later, PERFECT steamé!

(Not sure how your comments will interpret an "e accent egout", so let me explain that L'hot-dog steamAY" was the perfect between period snack at the old Montreal Forum.
 
The idea of microwave induced cancer was treated in a very very funny way on the latest South Park.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLFD0mPJnlk