ST. LOUIS -- I was at a funeral in Ohio when I fell into a conversation with a man who, like me, had married into the bereaved family.

He was retired now, but he had worked in distribution for Whirlpool. For the last few years before he retired, he had worked for a company I probably never heard of, he said. AGA.

“AGA?” I said. “Of course I have heard of them.”

English-made AGA stoves are known as being the best of the best. They are made of cast iron, so basically they are as indestructible as an Army tank. The cast iron absorbs and retains heat, so everything you put in the multiple ovens (each set to a different, unchanging temperature) cooks gently and evenly.

People who own them have no interest in cooking on anything else, ever. But the stoves do have a few drawbacks.

Because they are made of cast iron, they weigh a ton — and by “a ton,” I mean “the heaviest one literally weighs half a ton.” That can be tough on your floor joists. The heat (for the classic version) is always on, though fairly low, which means it radiates warmth at all times. That’s fine in chilly England, where it can help warm the kitchen and the house, but it is less helpful in the moist heat of a St. Louis summer.

My wife and I very briefly entertained the idea of buying one at some point and in a different city but rapidly decided against it for those reasons and one more: They aren’t cheap.

“How much do they cost?” I asked my new friend. “Ten thousand?”

“Twenty,” he said, and he underestimated a bit. These days, they cost $24,584, though you might get one on sale for a bit more than $23,000.

Now that I’m writing about it, I suddenly want one again. How hard can it be to win a lottery?

Because he had been in the business, I told the gentleman (he’s the husband of my wife’s first cousin, once removed) about my new wall oven, and all of its bells and whistles.

I haven’t yet used most of the bells and whistles: The no preheat feature (I don’t understand how it works, and I don’t see the point), the Sabbath mode, the air-fry feature (we have an air fryer that works fine) and some of the others.

But I do find myself falling in love with the air sous vide mode.

Sous vide is a method of cooking that submerges vacuum-packed food in water that is kept at a constant temperature. Because the temperature does not fluctuate, as it does with traditional ways of heating, the food slowly cooks to that exact temperature and no higher.

In other words, it will cook your beef to a perfect medium rare at 130 degrees, and you can hold it at that temperature for several hours without hurting the flavor or texture. After a quick sear on both sides, you have the juiciest, most tender meat (or eggs or certain vegetables) you’ve ever eaten in your life.

Air sous vide, which is what my oven has, does the same thing, only less efficiently. It heats the oven to a steady, constant temperature, which slowly warms the meat to that temperature and no higher. But air does not conduct heat nearly as well as water, so it takes longer than you might think to get it right.

It takes longer than some internet sources, ahem, say it will.

But eventually it gets there. And the result is more than worth the wait.

Last week, I used it to make one of my favorite Stephen Raichlen recipes, Bademiya’s Justly Famous Chile-Coriander Chicken. It is a recipe meant to be grilled, which I have discovered works particularly well when cooked sous vide instead.

You lose the flavor of smoke and fire from the grill, but you gain a tenderness and juiciness that only comes from sous vide.

So far, I’ve used it to make chicken a few different ways, lamb chops and steak. Each has been outstanding.

It may never take the place of an AGA range, but it will do in a pinch.

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