The time has arrived. The paint color has been decided, the layout committed to paper. The cabinets have been measured and ordered, the countertops pondered. Lighting schemes are underway, plans for the floor determined. And yes, appliances, of the trendy stainless steel variety, have been selected and quoted. They only await our order. But herein lies the problem. I am in love with my current stove, a 40 inch 1959 GE that, I believe for reasons unknown to me, belongs in this house more than I do. Both ovens are 25-50 degrees off, depending on what day it is, and in order to cook the perfect pancake, you must switch the burner between 2 and 3 every couple of minutes. My husband curses it. I admire its temperament, have, from day one, felt a kinship with it. At least, I think, its quirks are consistent.

Keeping it in use, however, is no longer an option. Like I said, the cabinets have been ordered, the slot for the stove reduced to a standard 30 inches. But I cannot give my ’59 up that easily. Everyday I think of new places to put it. In my office as a bookcase. In the guest bedroom as a dresser. In the bathroom as a sinkless vanity. My husband will fight me on this, I know, but the one place I’m unwilling to have my stove live is in my heart as a memory.

Oh, the food we have cooked together. The pepperoni and fresh garlic pizzas. The Penne Norma, Porkchop Chile, Coconut Chicken Curry. We’ve baked hams and roasted turkeys, steamed veggies and canned jelly. Without you, will I ever look forward to cooking again? Will my new oven doors creak the way yours do? Will it perfectly dry out my bread and burn my granola if left unattended to? Will the timer, if bumped, send out an eerie buzz, like lights zapping bugs, the way yours does?

I’m afraid not. It will be new and shiny and stylish. It won’t talk back or even hum to let me know I’ve left it on. It will be silent. Stoic. Alien.

I will approach this new stove like a child approaches lima beans or broccoli—with a crinkled nose, a screwed up mouth, a staunch refusal to dig in, to just try it.

Oh, my stove, if you go, take me with you…

The question is: will I be the child who grows up to like lima beans and broccoli, or even just one or the other? Or will that childhood disgust continue into adulthood, color me like a birthmark, brand me like a deep and abiding scar?

In the current issue of The Oxford American Magazine, Beth Ann Fennelly talks about eating the meal of a lifetime while New Orleans was in the midst of destruction from Hurricane Katrina. “I ate wasabi-pea-encrusted tuna, quail with figs and chanterelles, duck with port glaze, and truffled potatoes,” Fennelly said. “The lobster mac and cheese had not yet given up the ghost when the cornmeal-dusted Apalachicola oysters with tasso elbowed their way onto the table. Then the crabmeat wontons…And then they brought out the filet mignon…”And all the while, the magnificent city of New Orleans was flooding. “I suppose that’s a big part of my shame and guilt concerning that August 29th,” Fennelly writes. “Not just that I was dining while others suffered and died, but that the dinner was excessive, approaching grotesquery.”

Fennelly then goes on to discuss the rise in hedonism and the burgeoning food culture, and compares the “gourmet nation” of the prosperous to the “garbage nation” of the poor—those who rely on heavily processed, fattening food to sustain them because they no longer have access to fresh food, and/or can’t afford to obtain it. They are divorced from the land and reliant on the fast food industry. This, she points out, is creating a strange link between poverty and obesity in America.

Her goal, through this exploration, is to eat well and contribute to a sustainable environment. She ends the article by saying:

“My role as a good citizen of our ‘gourmet nation’ is to examine food-table connectivity. I’m encouraged to think about how my meal affects the food chain and the cost to the world’s energy sources, and I’m encouraged to take pride in making wise decisions. But now I’m beginning to notice other kinds of connectivity, some of which are less gratifying. I’m haunted by a simple coincidence—a lavish meal and a natural disaster. And haunted by the fact that perhaps it’s less of a coincidence than I’d like to believe…”

Have you given much thought to the “cost” of what you eat? Not just the money cost, but the social, the moral? Analyze the meal you eat tonight. Where did your groceries come from? How were they grown? Do you know? Don’t you think you should?