It's hard to keep us out of the kitchen, for no other reason than we just really enjoy food! Today we offer up a dilectable assortment of gourmet gadgets.
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EPISODE 156
Cocoon Cooker Grows Meat In Your Kitchen (thanks Bill!)
Ultrasonic dishwasher cleans your plates with waves of sound (thanks Sam!)
Ravi cools wine at the very moment it is poured
Cosentino turns minerals and woods into truly unique surfaces
LED Grabbing Tool Picks Valuables From Where Fingers Fear To Tread
Taylor Digital Measuring Cup Scale
... Read moreIf there's one thing I dislike more than folding laundry, it's doing the dishes. But they've got to get done somehow, because I hate having a dirty kitchen more than either of those things.
(Credit:
Ubergizmo)
Electrolux is always coming up with creative ways to keep your kitchen clean. Here at Appliances and Kitchen Gadgets, it's best-known for its sponsorship of the Electrolux Design Lab, which gives industrial design students an opportunity to strut their stuff each year in designing innovative home appliances. In keeping with its reputation, the company has come up with a unique concept for a dishwasher, using a combination of UV light and air pressure instead of gallons of hot water.
The washing cycle begins with a blast of high-pressure air that removes leftover food and debris from the dishes, followed by hot steam that degreases them. The final step includes a set of UV beams that sterilize the dishes and prep them for use.
The downside is the size, which appears to be large enough to accommodate only enough dishes for one person. It also seems like cleaning cups would be difficult, since the air pressure stage of the washing cycle seems to rely heavily on clear access to all parts of the dish. That being said, it's just a concept, so let's cross our fingers that later editions are big enough to fit a family's worth of dishes.
(Via Ubergizmo)
(Credit:
Akihabara News)
(Credit:
Technabob)
Apparently the Lego-iPod mashup that surfaced last year has tapped into a demand for other brick-like products, though we can't help but wonder if trademark complaints are in the offing.
Yesterday, for example, Technabob passed along a selection of "Lego-esque media players" and matching stereo docks in various colors. And today, Akihabara News tells us of a "Lego-like USB key" that can be joined with other pieces to create a custom flash drive.
The keys have only 1GB of storage space, but don't worry: When it's full, you can still play with them because they are "100 percent compatible" with authentic Lego bricks. We doubt, by the way, that these products are dishwasher-safe.
While most people in the tech sector are watching what's going on at CES in Las Vegas, some of us still have our eyes on what's going on in the kitchen.
This Smeg dishwasher comes with just one interior basket and measures 24 inches tall.
(Credit: AJ Madison)Apartment Therapy's Kitchn blog today points to a half-size dishwasher that could start popping up in apartments around the country. The Smeg dishwasher comes in three sizes, the most interesting of which tops out at just less than 24 inches tall. On the outside, it's a standard, stainless steel appliance. Inside, it's basically like the bottom basket of a regular dishwasher.
This design works well for a space-challenged city kitchen for two reasons, the obvious one being that it takes up less space under the counter, potentially freeing up room for a drawer or cupboard. But also, one or two people living in a small studio or one-bedroom apartment tend not to go through dishes quite as fast as a larger household (or they may not even own enough dishes to fill a full-size washer). In that case, the ability to do smaller loads more often would certainly come in handy.
Having just gone through the apartment shopping process, I was hoping beyond all hope to find a place that had a dishwasher. No such luck. So as I get used to the idea of handwashing my dishes for another undetermined number of years, this dishwasher seems like a fantastic idea. It almost makes the $1,599 price tag worth considering. Almost.
(Credit:
Fisher & Paykel)
I should start off with a disclaimer: The title of this post may be biased. I am inclined to perceive just about any dishwasher as a dishwasher of awesomeness, since (like many New Yorkers) I don't have one. Consequently, I see the dishwasher as some sort of magical mystery device. Take that as you will.
But this one, the Fisher & Paykel Double DishDrawer, is still cooler than most, in my opinion. Why? Because it tackles both energy efficiency and space efficiency in one clever design move. Instead of being one big, water-guzzling machine that doesn't always fill up with every load, the Double DishDrawer is split up into two. You can buy one instead of both, or separate the two if you're cramped for space. This way, if you're only doing half a load of dishes, you only have to use half a dishwasher--which, according to the product page, uses fewer than two gallons of water.
But it ain't cheap. Half of the Double DishDrawer will cost you $739; I'll let you do the math while I get back to hand-washing a sink full of spaghetti-sauce-covered plates.
(Via Apartment Therapy)
(Credit:
Compact Appliances)
Yes, to many of you this will look stupid. But if you're an urban apartment-dweller like me, there's a good chance that you saw this gadget and immediately said "OMIGOD, I NEED THAT." Our suburban brethren often don't realize that many apartments in New York, San Francisco, London, Tokyo, etc. don't have dishwashers due to space constraints. As a result, we've become very well acquainted with every brand of dish soap on the market (hello, Method Home!), the merits of relying on take-out Chinese food, as well as the deep drama involved in telling our spouses, partners, and roommates, "It's your turn to do the dishes."
Consequently, when I saw this counter-top dishwasher from EdgeStar on the Apartment Therapy blog, I was immediately impressed at the concept. As it turns out, these have been around for several years now, but I'd never heard of them until now. This one costs $189 and can fit "up to four standard place settings" according to its product page.
The catch is that I bet it's not all that efficient, to the point where it's probably speedier and more eco-savvy to just wash the dishes by hand. But I can dream, can't I?
(Credit:
BornRich)
We used to joke that Japan was hurtling toward a human-free society, but now we're starting to worry that it's true. The island nation, already concerned about its rapidly declining population (of humans), has recently debuted bots that can clean buildings, plow snow, detect smoke and even police grounds while others escort hospital patients and take their temperatures.
But now robots are entering the ultimate inner sanctum: the kitchen. BornRich says a team of more than 40 Japanese researchers spent four years creating a domestic bot that can, among other things, wash dishes. (Maybe it's not such a bad trend after all.)
They're not yet cooking seven-course meals, but these machines can pour tea apparently without spilling, which is more than we can say of ourselves. But if they start preparing sushi, we're heading for the bunker.
We couldn't agree with Slashgear more on this one: As any parent knows, kids are filthy. They are sand-eating, dirt-grubbing bacterial magnets.
Despite the universality of this fact, we're still surprised that, of all companies, Bosch gets it. We just couldn't envision its black-turtlenecked German designers surrounded by germ-infested toddlers. But at least some people at the high-end company must understand what rug rodents are about, because they designed this Lego-safe dishwasher that can clean the toy bricks without melting them into plastic blobs. And because it's Bosch, we're relieved to say, the appliances won't look like this.
(Photo: Robert Bosch)
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