I’ve been having cooker woes ever since we moved to this house. First it was an ancient separate hob and oven – the oven was hanging off the wall and every time I opened its door it was a moment away from crashing onto the floor. The hob was simply useless.

When we renovated the kitchen in 2009 we bought a new dual fuel cooker that managed to live for three and a half years before it died, by which time it had virtually rusted away to nothing, not to mention its ignition system failing and one of its ovens ceasing to function. Note to self: NEVER buy another Hotpoint – they are cheap crap.

At the point that the Hotpoint failed, our finances were at their lowest ebb. We bought a second hand electric cooker on ebay – a good brand but old. It’s never worked properly – none of the ring thermostats worked so it was either on so hot it cremated everything or it simply didn’t heat. I managed to burn so much carbon onto one of my Le Creuset pans that it has proven impossible to remove and is now very dead too. Another of the Le Creusets got so hot its enamel popped off the inside! It’s a good job they were second hand or that’d have been a load of money down the pan. Anyway, that cooker died last weekend and we had to do something sharpish.

We did a cost analysis of the second hand one vs the last new one and despite the usual rule of thumb that new is more expensive, buying new proved cheaper on this occasion. A tour of Plymouth revealed that there were no dual fuel cookers available in the right size other than another Hotpoint. We both agreed that was somewhere we’d never go again. I reluctantly agreed to go back to leccy. I wasn't happy. Despite using an electric cooker for more than 20 years of my 30 years of adult life/home ownership, I have never liked them, always preferring gas. We found an ex-display cooker that was both within our budget (in other words cheap) and had an induction hob. I didn’t believe the “hype” that they were as good as gas for a single moment. No siree. That can’t be possible.

So, it arrived yesterday and it is just amazing. Honestly. What it does is stunning. See the picture? They are paper towels between the hob and the pans. You see, the hob doesn’t get hot. Well, it only gets a little bit hot because the pan sitting on it is hot. Don’t ask me how this works but basically the cooker sends a little love message to the pan. The pan gets excited and hot. Then it cooks stuff all by itself. Those paper towels that you can see did not even get singed yet the pizzas cooked perfectly. We’ve now had three meals cooked on it and it’s a joy to use. It can simmer so my pans stay carbon free. Last night, I put a couple of inches of cold water into a large pan along with some Ratte potatoes and the pan boiled in about 2.5 minutes – you couldn’t have boiled the water in the kettle that quickly.

I know the photo is a bit cack and that it’s early days but for now I’m eating my words as a side order along with food that I don’t have to scrape the burned bit off before eating it. If you add to the mix the fact that Sainsbury's has just announced that they will deliver groceries to our house and I think that my world has just got a whole lot more fabulous!