Kitchen Gadgets
I'm no stranger to kitchen gadgets. In my family's kitchen, we have our fair share, from Vita-Mix to Cuisinart and Riedel. I feel fairly confident that I could be handed a recipe for nearly any food in the world and be able to drive to my parent's house and make the dish without going out to buy a tool or appliance.
Our gadgets are useful. Bread machines, food processors, electric bowl mixers, old-fashioned pasta rollers, garlic presses—these gadgets serve a specific purpose but have well paid for themselves in utility.
The new crop of specialty gadgets blogged about this week, however, is a mishmosh of kitsch so bizarre and utterly unnecessary that it all makes my head spin.
Take the Col-Pop, covered in Serious Eats, one of my new favorite blogs. A South Korean BBQ chain has devised a soda cup in which an insert holds fried popcorn chicken suspended separate from, but just above, the cup of soda. Because we need to make snacking on sugary, fried foods even easier, so easy that it can be done with one hand.
Or a cheeseburger in a can. Yes, you read right. So now you don't even need to get up and go to a fast food chain to get your greasy cheeseburger fix. All you have to do is walk to the kitchen.
And finally, the pen-top utensil. So you can eat lunch at your desk, depriving your mind of the change of scenery it gets when you take a walk outside to pick up lunch from a restaurant or eat the lunch you brought from home.
Why don't inventors focus on making healthy food easier to eat? Wait, they already have. Premade crudite platters and premixed salads. Oh, and yogurt cups. And premade sandwiches. Them too.
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