Oh my! I just want to live in that last picture!

I love the sunny yellow Aga - just right for cheering up dull winter days. However, that does'nt look like an Aga in the first kitchen...

i've always had a soft spot in my heart for these, not only because they are lovely and homey, but because the diminutive of my name is also aga. thanks for the post!

One of my favorite all time appliances. If only I could afford one!

I still don't get the fascination. I had to stay with family who had one just like the one in the third picture, and I did all the cooking. It was a giant pain in the ass! When you can't turn the heat down on those top plates enough and you just have to leave the pot halfway off of the heated part and then when you cook too long they lose all their heat and things take a million years to cook.

I imagine the newer versions are a little less ridiculous, this was also the heat source for most of the (large, cold, damp old) house. But seriously. Does anyone who adores these so really use them on a regular basis?

We also dried the laundry on it. So multipurpose, yes, but even less attractive to me when covered in pants and towels.

I'm with Anne (in Reno)- I don't really get it. I've cooked in a kitchen that had one of these, and it was a huge nightmare. (It was also a house at over 8,000 ft. elevation, which made the cooking even more interesting...) You have about as much control over temperature as cooking over a campfire. Give me a gas Viking-style range any day.

Aga's are a British institution, like Hunter wellies, Barbour jackets and Labrador dogs. No English country house should be without one and most of us over here secretly hanker after one, even if we also want a regular cooker in the kitchen, and don't have the country house but live in a two bed flat in Birmingham.

They speak upper class, which is why Sophie Dhal has one in her cooking show.

I lived in a house with one of these and I thought it was the opposite of a pain. If you are trying to make Chinese stirfry maybe it's not for you, but if you are cooking low & slow there is nothing better than Aga ovens. Also LOVE toast made on the Aga burner.

That kitchen, with light from windows on both sides, the cream colored Aga, a farmhouse table, cozy Windsor chairs, the wireless and a Welsh dresser full of blue & white china, is still my ideal of kitchens, now & forever more.

I grew up with an aga in the kitchen. The beauty of an aga is that it literally becomes the heart of the kitchen, the warm center of attention. The kitchen has always been the most important room of the home for me. This is even more true when growing up in somewhat drafty log cabin in the last gasp of farms in suburban philadelphia. There is nothing better than coming in from a cold morning feeding the hens (to sound so idyllic) and snuggling up to the aga. The dogs love it too. Our corgi practically glues herself to side of it in the winter.

I'll never forget watching the aga introduction video over and over again. The part where they put a tiny lamb in the lowest over to keep it warm overnight!

Maybe I'm missing it, but is there *any* reason you'd do a post about a product without linking to that actual product? Seriously. I click the Aga link and get ... another AT post. Great way to increase your page hit numbers, but you're doing your readers a huge disservice.

Interesting. I have seen these before, but seems like way too much overhead in terms of keeping it in working order for a long time (over 20yrs) in the even that *GASP* you actually do frequent cooking *GASP* and don't just have a "show kitchen" for your friends to pat you on the back. Haha. I'm guessing that Home Depot/Lowe's may not have parts for this in the event that you needed to try and fix something yourself.

I'll admit it does like incredibly durable, but it's more something I would appreciate from afar rather than ever desire one for myself.