William Sommerwerck wrote:
"Meat Plow" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 25 Oct 2008 04:01:09 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:

I recently bought a B&D TRO-620 toaster oven and threw away
my Sunbeam 2-slice toaster.

I give it a 7 out of 10 for toasting bread (4 slices at a time) and
a 9 out of 10 overall for it's abilities to bake/broil/toast/reheat.

I enjoy an occasional bagel and it does them perfectly. I also like
to take a slice of sourdough bread from a Boule, cover it with hot
pepper jack cheese, and toast it until the cheese browns. It's great
for warming leftover pizza and broasted chicken. And don't forget
French bread pizza.

Ummmm.... French bread pizza... Ummmm....

When I was a kid, my mother would make bologna and melted-cheese sandwiches
in the GE Toast-R-Oven.

Thanks for the suggestion, though I'm already more or less prejudiced
towards the B&D. (S&M, I don't know about.) The issue isn't so much whether
they toast evenly (my current B&D is fairly good), but whether _any_ brand
is well-made and reliable. None seems to be.

A few minutes ago I took a second look at the B&D. No question about it...
The solenoid is jammed. It won't pull in and release the power switch. (It's
so badly jammed, I can't even force it to move.) Even if I could get a
replacement part, I'd have to weld the wiring. That's ridiculous, for a
20-year-old toaster that cost less than $25 and has given good service.

I will start looking for a new one tomorrow, mostly at Fred Meyer and the
hardware chains (Home Despot, Loewe's).




The B+D toaster we bought a while back is a heap.
The Darkness Selector knob is..well,useless. You either get "white" or
"black" toast,depending on which broad range it's set to.It's almost
like the knob doesn't work,and it's either MIN,or MAX..with nothing in
between.

The B+D hand mixer we got is..well,It's powerful.
The lowest setting will cover the entire kitchen with cake batter,if
you're not careful. I don't think we've ever had it's speed setting
above "2".

The Panasonic microwave we got ~15? years ago is still working well.