First cook.

I found myself home alone last night, and with my new Neff oven finally installed, I figured it was time to check out some features.

Earlier in the day, I’d picked up a small rolled pork loin, and I spent some time reading about the oven’s built-in meat thermometer and steamer function. I couldn’t quite figure out how to use the steamer and still crisp the pork crackling at the same time, so I put that aside for a future cook.

I spent a lot of time trying to get the oven hooked up to my Wi-Fi network. Honestly, that took almost as long as cooking the meat, which wasn’t that large. I knew there’d be a lot of faffing around with the app, the online connection, and getting plugged into the pre-loaded library of recipes and cooking instructions. But since I was on my own, I thought, what the hell, might as well tackle it.

It took about 45 minutes to set up the whole thing, but that’s a one-time cost. Still, it was a bit nerve-wracking telling my oven to head out onto the internet, fetch instructions for cooking this particular cut of meat, and then just get on with it. But that’s what I did.

I was also roasting some sweet potatoes with the pork, and honestly, that was the biggest challenge. I couldn’t put the vegetables in at the same time as the meat, so about halfway through, I had to interrupt the cook to slide them in. No biggie when you’re cooking conventionally, but it feels a bit more fraught when you’re letting the robot hive mind handle things.

Another thing I had to be careful about: the steamer. Thanks to a couple of years cooking with the Big Green Egg, I knew that opening the oven mid-cook with the steamer running would release a blast of superheated water vapor, right into my face, if I wasn’t careful. (You don’t get steam with a Big Green Egg, of course, but you do get a wall of flame if you throw it open in the middle of a high-temperature cook.) Luckily, I avoided that particular life-changing mistake.

About an hour and twenty minutes later, the pork came out.

I wouldn’t say it was perfectly cooked; the crackling didn’t happen, but to be fair, I didn’t really try to get it done. What mattered was the meat: it was perfectly cooked, tender and moist, and it hit the recommended internal temperature exactly, thanks to the built-in thermometer.

Interestingly, the sweet potatoes were the more nerve-wracking challenge. I had them on the top shelf and couldn’t see them directly without opening the oven, which I didn’t want to do. So I had to trust the program, and that paid off. The sweet potatoes didn’t burn—probably thanks to the steam function—and they came out with a lovely, almost creamy texture inside.

I would’ve taken a photo but… you know…