Aga can’t

Earlier this year my partner paid several hundred thousand pounds for an Aga. There’s no other way of putting it. A major cause of her excitement about our new house was the presence in its kitchen of the whacking great oven. I, on the other hand, was unsure how I felt about it — Aga-nostic, if you like. Six months later I’m sick of the bloody thing. What’s more, I’ve worked out why Aga lovers go on about them so much.

For those of you fortunate enough never to have encountered one of these beasts, the facts are these. An Aga has to be kept on constantly, sapping your fuel source (ours is electric) 24 hours a day. My model has two ovens, one at a fixed high temperature, the other at a fixed low temperature. There are two hotplates, ditto. And that’s it. No grill. No capacity for turning something down to a precise simmer: you can either watch your pasta boil dry in two minutes flat or come back for it tomorrow.