[net.cooks] TV dinners and foil in microwaves

rcj@burl.UUCP (R. Curtis Jackson) (11/11/83)

Several brands of microwave ovens offer a feature whereby the bottom
1" (approximately) of the oven can hold foil with no problems at
all.  This was made especially for TV dinner lovers (who are these
people, anyway?), from what I remember.

HOWEVER, the poster of the referenced article was quite right -- do
NOT do this unless your manual says it is ok; it is not a general
rule.  I have generated some pretty (dangerous) blue spark light
shows in a microwave with find china that has a thin gold ring around
the edge.  I have also had a $700 microwave destroyed:

My roommate's stepsister, with whom we shared a house split into two
apartments, had heard that a microwave was great for drying pantyhose
when a girl is in a hurry.  She did so a couple of times with no
problems, but one morning she put in a bra as well and immediately
left the room.  She came back about 1 minute later to find The
Towering Inferno playing on 'the tube'.  The 3/4 in. thick glass
plate in the bottom of the microwave was in chunks about 1" square.
There were stalagtites about 5" long of the inner coating of the
oven hanging everywhere.  Luckily, she had renter's insurance on
the house, or she would be dead right now at the hands of her
own stepbrother.   :-)

BTW, if you are ever really incredibly bored, get some large
marshmallows and put one on a paper towel in the microwave on HI.
It expands incredibly and loks kinda neat.
-- 

The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3814 (Cornet 291)
alias: Curtis Jackson	...![ floyd clyde ihnp4 mhuxv ]!burl!rcj