Things That Work--Kitchen

Most things we purchase are satisfactory. If they aren’t, I normally return them.

There are some things that go above and beyond our expectations. Those are the items I want to let you know about in my Things That Work blog. This time lets look at the kitchen.

First of all is our Kitchen Aid mixer. Ours is avocado green and has been well used for about 40 years. When we were in Southaven, MS the church ladies named the old green machine, “Fred”. I don’t know why. Fred spent many nights and weekends at church when the ladies were making their year’s supply of St. Timothy cheese balls. I’m certain ours didn’t cost $299.99 as they do today, but I do think the cost was well above average for a mixer. It has proved to be an excellent purchase.

Looking around the kitchen, I have to include the Chef's Choice electric knife sharpener. I used to spend about an hour just sharpening a couple of knives. Now I can do them all in about fifteen minutes. Consequently our knives stay sharp.

To go with the knife sharpener, I must list our plain oak handled Chicago Cutlery knives. We’ve had our knives for over 30 years and they still work wonderfully well. It’s nice to have a set of knives that can take care of all our cutlery needs. We have ten knives ranging from 10” butcher and carving knives to 3” paring knives with various sizes and configurations in between. Two suggestions: Don’t throw them in a drawer. Use a wooden block or a magnetic strip for storage. And keep them out of the dishwasher.

The newest item I'd like to mention is called "The 'Ove' Glove". We have two of them. They can handle hot objects up to 540 degrees. Since they fit like a regular glove, you can get a much better grip on objects. In addition, they are washable.

Looking just a bit further in the kitchen I notice our Bunn coffeemaker. We love that thing. It brews up a pot of coffee in three minutes flat. Some people say they don’t like the taste of coffee made in a Bunn coffeemaker. I suggest they just haven’t worked out their measurements. Ours makes a very consistent good cup of coffee.

I also like the smooth top electric cook top we have. Since we don’t have gas in the kitchen, we had to go with electric. Ours is a Kenmore. If you ever spill stuff or have something boil over, you will appreciate the ease of clean up.

My biggest disappointment, though generally satisfactory, has been the Jenn-Air double convection ovens. Those babies cost a few thousand. You can put food in the oven, set the timer and it will bake what you want when you want it baked and will keep it warm until you get home. It has an automatic thermostat that can be used for meats that will cut the oven off when the desired temperature is reached and then will keep the meat warm until you are ready to serve it.

With a convection oven, you supposedly can bake fish, bread and pies in the same oven at the same time without transferring the taste from one dish to the other. A nice feature. When reading on ovens, I figured the convection aspect was super duper so I made sure that both ovens were convection ovens. I have been disappointed when I’ve tried to use convection for baking. Convection for meat is wonderful, but forget baking. I’ve also been disappointed that the two ovens are not consistent. A pan of cookies will turn out great and the next pan from the same recipe will be over cooked. That shouldn’t happen. With our old ovens, if something turned out well the first time it would be the same the next time.

One more suggestion…one convection oven is sufficient. We don’t need two of them.

Well that’s it for the kitchen. If I didn’t mention it, I consider the items to be functioning in a satisfactory manner.