Go, go, gadget love!
Posted by Leah Hemenway on Sep 19th, 2007
I love gadgets. I even dream about them. I dream about this combo microwave-fridge wandering around, opening and shutting with perfectly cooked and coordinated meals. That’s my biggest problem, gadget or no gadget, getting everything done at the same time. One of my sons says that I get “too frantic” right before everybody sits down, worrying that the meat won’t be hot, the rolls aren’t ready, and the veggies are cold. I push and rush people around, with lots of admonitions, and generally make a pest of myself. So I continue to buy stone warmers, crock pots, rice cookers, warming areas. But my real interest in gadgets is totally different. When I buy a gadget … it’s hard to describe so I’ll try.
My yoghurt maker … I’d forgotten all about it until my brother Frank, (yes I seem to have an inexhaustible source of siblings) who is a banker, cynically asked, “What ever happened to your yoghurt maker?”
I suddenly felt sad and like I’d let someone down.
“Oh, I eventually got rid of it. It had so many pieces…”
I remember my yoghurt maker. It was during the early ‘70s when I was in college. I was going to be totally self sufficient, grow my own food, go vegetarian, and make my own yoghurt. The big companies like Dannon would be in trouble as I spread the word about how easy it is to become self sufficient. I set up the little jars with starter, plugged it in, and waited eight hours. At the end, I had maybe 20 ounces of yoghurt and a bunch of dirty dishes: lids and jars. My friends gave me their pieces as they lost various parts of their yoghurt makers. At one time I had two complete yoghurt makers. There were the days when I totally forgot about yoghurt and I ended up with 40 ounces of smelly, curdled mess, and clean-up. I moved every semester and eventually lost many pieces of my yoghurt maker. I gave up on vegetarianism, couldn’t make it to the community garden, and finally lost the last complete yoghurt maker in one of my moves. I didn’t miss it.
I had moved on to my blender by then. Blenders are the most endurable, remarkable gadgets for all ages. I was going to be the healthiest person alive. I was in graduate school when I had my first slightly inferior blender. I made smoothies from healthy heaven with Dannon yoghurt, bananas, peanut butter, and brewer’s yeast. I ran every day and ate my smoothies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My blender was loud, tore up the ice, and foamed everything up. After grad school I got married and received a very nice blender. When my kids came along, they became devotees to the blender. I taught them the basics. Zach and Arna preferred milk shakes, and could use a whole pint of strawberries at once. The ice clanged along. Then they moved to other more fun uses of the blender. Arna would create concoctions with horseradish, pickles, hot sauce, and strawberries,. In order to be in his “club”, you would have to drink a bit of this. We’d have a bucket ready for the pukers. And they did. The blender always amazed us with the color changes when you added something like blueberries. It transformed things, blended them, created new worlds. The blender has been a mainstay, one of the longest lasting wedding presents ever.
Another great gadget (maybe the greatest) is my air popcorn popper. Twenty-eight years ago I bought my first air popcorn popper. It’s so easy because it has three parts: base, attachment and butter dish. I lost the butter dish immediately. Since then, I have popped bowls and bowls of popcorn. I always feel so moral when I use my popper. Air popcorn has very few calories, especially if you don’t heat up butter to put on it. It’s such a joy to watch the hot air just pop up all the corn. It is also the loudest possible appliance which is a down side. Even from upstairs Bob yells, “I want some of that popcorn.” So sneaking popcorn is out. Since I grew up in a big family and sneaking is second nature, I dream that someone will invent a silencer for my air popcorn popper.
My list of gadgets would be incomplete without the breadmaker. I wanted one for Christmas one year, but Bob decided I needed a watch. Finally I treated myself to the breadmaker. I came home and fired it up. For awhile the smell of baking bread was worth every penny. My family loved the bread. We had fresh bread constantly. I thought that I should have run a bakery. Then I realized that I was making two loaves of bread, one for my family and one for me. I spent a lot of time at home, planning my classes and grading papers. I could go through lots of bread without even noticing. Then I realized that I actually missed kneading the bread. So I gave the breadmaker away.
I’ve always fallen for choppers since I like to cook with onions. I could never get attached to the various choppers because they had so many pieces that had to be carefully cleaned. Besides that, I missed the drama of chopping onions. I used to think of sad things as my eyes watered. I’d walk in the room and say, “Everybody in this family is so bad. It just makes you want to cry.” And then I’d ham it up a little and cry.
“We’re sorry, mom,” they’d say.
Then I’d laugh and tell them it was just the onions, but they were welcome to confess the bad things they had done that I hadn’t discovered yet.. I felt like the choppers were cheating me out of the experience of cooking. I actually enjoy chopping, even onions. I ‘ve always been inspired while I chop. I think of problems and ways to solve them.
More and more I realize that gadgets have to walk a thin line for me. I think they need to add to the experience of cooking or cleaning. It’s best if a gadget is amazing, maybe even magical. A microwave or a dishwasher is probably the greatest example. For many years we had neither. I would bake potatoes for hours. I would re-heat leftovers and half the time they stuck to the bottom of the pan or tasted terrible. I would try to heat up rolls, just slightly. I would melt butter and forget about it. Then my microwave came to live with us. Baked potatoes were miraculously done in five minutes and leftovers were perfect. Rolls couldn’t be better. The microwave timed it all and couldn’t be distracted. Besides that you could wrap a White Castle hamburger in a napkin and put it in for 30 seconds, and you almost thought you just left the restaurant.
When we first got the microwave, I had my doubts. Would the kids ever stop experimenting? I was afraid to go to the bathroom. One day I thought things had settled down.
I went upstairs to change my work clothes, not checking on Arna’s whereabouts. Arna must have been watching for this unguarded opportunity. He put a raw egg in the microwave. It sounded like a gunshot. I rushed down to see what had happened. It was a mess.
“Be careful. You might start a fire or something.” I was vague, not really sure of the power of the microwave. I wasn’t on very good grounds after I put a coffee cup with a gold rim in the microwave to reheat it. Luckily I was standing nearby when I heard a swishing sound and realized that it was on fire.
Eventually all of us began to take the microwave for granted. Bob quit calling it “that thing” and stopped complaining that things tasted different.. It was like a refrigerator or a stove. The dishwasher was another new appliance for us. I still marvel that I can stick many, many dishes in there and they all get cleaned and dried. All you have to do is go without a dishwasher for a few years, especially at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then you are in love with the dishwasher. I didn’t really mind doing dishes. Again, I thought about the events of the day or I made plans for the next day. Sometimes I’d keep a notebook nearby to write down my ideas. But when we got a dishwasher, I couldn’t believe what I was missing. I still walk through the kitchen and pat my dishwasher lovingly, “Don’t ever break. We love you.”
There are many other gadgets that have a place in my heart: salad spinners, apple corers, rice cookers, Foreman grill, pizza stones. I guess that the kitchen is the most wonderful room in the house. I have spent so many special hours there, cooking, thinking, and anticipating the good times. The gadgets spice it up, make things fun, and they create magic. I’ll never forget a fascinating gadget that I’ve never owned, but love to watch. It’s an automatic vacuum cleaner. You may have seen it. It looks like a large circle, moving around through the room and vacuuming. The machine senses the edges of the room and keeps on going all around the room.
My friend once confessed to me, “My wife and I don’t go out any more. We just watch our new automatic vacuum cleaner. We even bought a special charger for it.”
I knew exactly what he meant.
at 5:12 a.m.
Dear Home Alone,
I think you are either a very nurturing and creative person or a complete nut. I put my kitchen, all gadgets included, on Craig's List to trade for a garage. Only a few responses so far. The gadgets I treasure are a scissors-like garlic crusher, a cherry pitter, a lemon zester and Dearly Beloved, the dishwasher. Esmarelda
at 1:02 p.m.
If I start even looking at a gadget rack I always see something I MUST have! One of the best kitchen gadgets is a plain old pair of scissors!
Two of the most over-rated gadgets I never fell for: rice maker and bread machine.
Did you know you can bake rice in the oven? Comes out perfect--whaddya need a machine for?
Bread machine---the no-knead recipie from NYTimes does just fine.