Mrs H and I were browsing round some expensive electrical kitchen gadgets this morning. Cookery gadgets with lots of buttons each of which promised to come up with perfectly cooked food with almost no effort at all apart from bunging in some ingredients. Some of them connect to the internet which sounds scary.
The trouble is, decades of experience tells us that apart from the simple ones, most electrical kitchen gadgets end up in the back of a cupboard waiting for a decision on final disposal because they are nowhere near as useful as we’d hoped.
By far the best are the oldies such as microwave, kettle, toaster and bread maker although our recently acquired soup maker is good. We also use a grill thing for making toasted cheese sandwiches and a little gadget which makes perfect boiled eggs. Both were cheap, both are simple and both work well
In other words, we already have simple electrical kitchen gadgets which work well and however hard we try we can’t see much use for anything more complicated. Especially gadgets which connect to the internet.
So we didn’t buy a new toy for the kitchen.
6 comments:
We don't have enough empty horizontal surface for more gadgets. I can, however, recommend an ice cream maker. Ours sits in our front porch when it's not in use. Our toasted sandwich maker never emerges from our front porch.
What worries me is our excellent fridge that has drawers rather than shelves: someday it will die. Nobody seems to make these any more.
Years ago we had a nice little coffee-bean grinder that you worked by hand. Domed top where you put in the beans, a big handle, and a little pull-out drawer at the bottom where the ground coffee collected. Quite chunky, and satisfying to use.
The gears snapped, so we started looking for a new one. We passed a swanky kitchen shop (in Dorchester, it was) so decided to have a look. The bloke in the shop knew exactly what we meant, but, alas, they no longer made them. It was all electrical these days. He had some lovely electric grinders for £40 plus, and used to stock the old-fashioned manual ones, but you just couldn't get them. But just look at this nice electric one...
Well, we didn't buy, as £40-£100 seemed a bit steep. Maybe we could get an old one in an antiques market, although Mrs. Vega shuddered at the idea of using second hand stuff in the kitchen. It would need boiling...
Of course, they still make them, and we've seen loads of cheap functional little models. But we buy ground coffee now. It's easier. Except when I pick up the wrong packet, and we have nothing to grind the beans with.
dearieme - Our daughter, the gadget queen, has bought useful clear plastic boxes in various sizes which essentially convert the shelved fridge to "drawers" while you still have the opportunity to remove them to use the whole shelf for legs of beef, half a sheep or whatever.
Sam Vega - coffee grinder - Asda - £9. Works fine, if slightly noisy.
dearieme - a lack of empty horizontal surfaces is our problem too. We are reluctant to lose space but if gadgets enter a cupboard they tend to stay there. We have a modern fridge without drawers and it can be a pain when what we want is somewhere at the back. It's surprising how often that happens.
Sam - years ago we had a sturdy mechanical coffee grinder but one of the kids dropped a little rubber toy into it, turned the handle and I couldn't remove it from the innards. Since then we've always used ground coffee. We still see mechanical ones in antiques shops though.
Jannie - we use lots of clear plastic boxes. Good for freezing stewed apples from the apple tree for example.
Sorry to be late to the party, I have been spending more time in the kitchen. I had some inexpensive stewing beef in the freezer which needed using. The advice on the packet was that I casserole it for three to four hours. I used my mother's ancient Prestige pressure cooker, the meat was as tender as could be in less than half an hour. All on a low gas on the hob. There are now half a dozen portions of beef stew in the freezer. I also inherited some saucepans one of which mum inherited from her mother. The handles are still secure, unlike modern ones which tend to fall off at awkward moments.
Andy - Mrs H and I were discussing pressure cookers just a few days ago. We used to have one years ago and Mrs H's mother used hers all the time. I can see us buying another.
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