Appliances – what's new and exciting?
When they show an oven in Milan they don't just show an oven. They bring a group of star chefs, put up a whole kitchen, and have them cook a storm right in front of your eyes (and nose…).
So what's new?
Dishwashers
Other than technologies which are said to get the dishes cleaner (who knows?) the newest gimmicks were:
- Adding a third shelf to the dishwasher for cutlery. Using a very shallow shelf for the cutlery enables to clear up some space on the bottom shelf for a few more sets of dishes. These dishwashers are advertised to hold 15 sets of dishes. To be questioned is how convenient is it to lay the dirty cutlery one by one on the shelf rather than stuffing a whole group in the familiar holder?
- The biggest pain in the dishwasher is bending down to that bottom shelf. Here's your solution: a pop-up bottom shelf!
- Okay, this is a cute gimmick. Not life changing but sometimes helpful. Those of you that have a fully integrated dishwasher (the ones where all the controls are on the inside) know that point when you're wondering how much time is left? There is no way of checking that without opening the door. So now the dishwasher will project that information onto the floor.
Ovens
No chance of you forgetting when you put that chicken into the oven. Everything is computerized. You could program the oven to cook 10 minutes on high, then 50 minutes on medium and then 5 minutes on grill. At every point you could check what you're up to. You could even decide in a convection oven what percentage of steam you want.
Practical developments:
1. Ovens that open automatically by pressing on the door ("Touch"), leaving your hands free to hold onto the dish.
2. The 45 cm. self cleaning oven by Electrolux (and others too). This is a great advantage for kosher kitchens. Just the right size for an additional dairy or pareve oven. The self cleaning feature was not available in this size oven so we're looking forward to this one.
3. An oven which is the standard 60 cm. height but only 45 cms. wide. Never came across these dimensions before. The brand of this oven is not sold in Israel- yet. Not useful for large trays but could sometimes serve as a solution in a tight kitchen.
The gimmick section:
1. Look at this oven. coming up from the countertop. No need to bend down or to deal with a door in the way. Definitely an elegant way of serving.
2. Now this is one of these things that you say: Why haven't they come out with this earlier?! You know how the oven door is always in the way? Well this door opens automatically (just press the door lightly with your finger) and then slides in and under. Amazing!
Hoods
So many designs, so many colors! Endless configurations. Hood on the wall, on the ceiling, coming out of the countertop on the sides of the stovetop or from the back. I think they've practically given us any possible way to get a hood in the kitchen no matter what our layout.
The gimmick section:
A hood which generates a sound wave that cancels out the noise of the hood.
Stovetops
the focus in this section are the induction stoves. What is an induction stove?
Induction is a method, completely different from all other cooking technologies— it does not involve generating heat which is then transferred to the cooking vessel, it makes the cooking vessel itself the original generator of the cooking heat. An induction cooker is faster and more energy-efficient than a traditional electric cooking surface. It allows instant control of cooking energy similar to gas burners. Other cooking methods use flames or red-hot heating elements; induction heating heats only the pot. Because the surface of the cook top is heated only by contact with the vessel, the possibility of burn injury is significantly less than with other methods.(based on Wikipedia)
It took a while to shake the traditional layout of "burners" and realize that this technology enables any part of the stove to cook. So what do we have? FREE ZONES. Place a pot any size, anywhere on the surface and it will heat up. You know what this means? You are free to figure out any configuration that works for you today!
Once we do that, the technology takes us one more step ahead:
Put a pot on the surface. The stovetop will detect the pot and show it on a screen. Now build a "program" for this pot. What you would like the stove to do? Cook 5 minutes on high and then 20 on low- no problem! Move the pot to a new location, the stovetop will detect it and continue your cooking plan. Amazing!
The gimmick section:
The stovetop controls are projected onto the counter top. Touch an icon and it will open up a menu. Put something on the counter blocking the projection, the menu will "jump" to the other side.
For those of us who feel safer with the traditional methods:
New designs for gas stovetops:
Many more technologies are out there regarding kitchen outlets, kitchen lighting, coffee machines, cooking, cooling, freezing, growing herbs- you name it. This is probably the fastest developing field of kitchen planning and design in the past decade.
I am very curious to see what products will hit our small market here. (I only count those that reach the market at a reasonable price. otherwise, for a price, you could get anything…)
Derorit
Creating spaces people want to live in
