Wednesday, May 25, 2005 | 8:26 a.m.
For decades architects, designers and engineers have been working to make life easier in our kitchens. They've updated our salad spinners and coffee machines, built ergonomically correct kitchen tools, and given us silicone oven mitts, compact choppers and contour graters.
We now have the ability to make the perfect boiled egg, open soup cans with ease and fashionably slice fruit.
Maybe some innovations, such as ice trays that release cubes one at a time or pizza cutters designed to provide control and leverage, are a sign that we've become a little lazy.
But we can all sleep better knowing that a Swedish inventor has made it possible for us to have fresh garlic without ever having to clean another garlic press. "There are a lot of people who really value a tool that's going to work," said Anastasia Mickelson, spokeswoman for Zyliss, a Swiss company founded by a bicycle repairman in the 1960s. "There are a lot of people with drawers and drawers of tools because the ones they have don't work."
Zyliss' compact self-cleaning chopper and serrated peelers were examples at last week's Las Vegas Gourmet Housewares Show that prove innovation in the kitchen can be limitless.
The convention, held last week at the Las Vegas Convention Center, featured some of the most innovative kitchen gadgets coming to the market this year. Show honors went to OXO's silicone glove with cotton interior, a one-step cappuccino machine, Butter Boy (a mess-free corn-on-the-cob butterer), a silicone baking sheet, and ergonomic gel-handled kitchen tools by KitchenArt, expected to hit stores this year.
"These have science behind them. Anthropometrics," said KitchenArt spokeswoman Tangela Thompson, referring to the company's ice-blue gel-grip melon ballers, bottle openers and peelers that give each user a "customized grip."
Thompson traces the interest in comfortable kitchen tools to the attention given to carpal tunnel syndrome in the early 1990s.
Carla Anne Hunter, Zyliss' director of marketing, says Zyliss reaches several different kinds of consumers.
"There are hobby chefs looking for that perfect garlic press," Hunter said. "Other people just want to impress their friends."
Also, she added, "As the population gets older it wants comfort in the kitchen." Pointing to a $6.99 Zyliss multimouse opener, which is a three-way can and bottle opener that adjusts to cap size, Mickelson explained, "It's all about leverage. It takes a lot out of the task."
Silicone alley
While some of us remember cast-iron meat grinders in the kitchen, others can't imagine cooking without the help of silicone.
The material has put a modern spin on centuries-old baking tasks. What started with a silicone oven mitt has grown into hot pads, thermos holders, turkey basters, pancake turners, trivets and egg boilers. Dozens of companies showcased silicone oven mitts, which sell for roughly $20.
"Silicone is the hot new substance in the housewares category because you can do so much with it," said Joanna Cumberland, spokeswoman for ISi/Orka, which was a finalist this year for its silicone baking sheet, a metal-handled stabilized sheet that replaces the flimsy sheets.
"It's easy to clean and take care of. Some people will always want to use metal. It's a matter of taste."
ISi/Orka also creates stabilized but flexible silicone cookware and bakeware. But it's the company's ice trays with soft-bottomed cups that will probably make the bigger splash on the shelves this year by alleviating that dreaded spillage of a dozen cubes from a broken plastic tray when all you really want is one cube.
"You think ice trays are ice trays are ice trays," Cumberland said. "But now you can push it without it spilling all over."
ISi used the same theory for its silicone ice cream scoop -- again, a soft spot on the cup to push the ice cream from the scoop. No more messy hands.
Messiness led Katherine Waymire of Talisman Designs, "creator of the disposable party pick trays," to look for an easier way to butter corn.
Her Butter Boy, scheduled to be in stores this summer, is a green tool the size of a fist, which holds the butter so you don't have to.
"A year ago I'm getting annoyed buttering the corn," Waymire said. "I just look for solutions. I look at art and function and try to align the two. I want to bring something unique, but also something that brings a smile to people's faces."
Moreover, Kimberly Simon, who works for Talisman Designs, said, "It's less messy. The only thing that's going to touch the butter is the product. If you don't use the whole stick of butter, you put it in the refrigerator."
"I'd love to have one," said Deb Barr, an exhibitor from Charlottesville, Va. "To have something where you don't have to touch the paper or the butter is really great."
Also in the less-mess category, Zyliss is introducing a new chopper that comes with a rubber bottom to cushion the blow while chopping herbs and tomatoes. Its built-in wipers clean the interior edges so you don't have to do it yourself.
Stylish silver
Alessi, the Italian company that has worked with such architects as Frank Gehry and Michael Graves (both of whom have designed tea kettles for Alessi), goes for style in the kitchen.
"We try to make products that make life a bit easier, happier, enjoyable," Jan Vingerhoets, executive vice president for Alessi, said. "We don't feel we have to invent the perfect kettle because the perfect kettle has been designed 100 years ago. We take it to another level."
At Alessi, he said, "We never ask the public for their opinions. We try to surprise them. We try to stay as close as possible to the border of success and failure.
"Mass production companies only look at the needs of people so all of these pots and pans will look alike."
Pointing to modular serving dishes that were initially thought of as an Alessi failure, Vingerhoets said, "Thirty years ago we launched it and nobody understood it. Now we're relaunching it and everyone wants it. Now it's one of the hottest items."
Alessi is also known for its whimsical, brightly colored playful tools, such as its rabbit-in-the hat toothpick, carrot-and-rabbit paper towel holders and character egg holders.
New this year is the Fruit Loop, a ring-shaped fruit container that will hold a dozen apples or oranges (think ball bearing) and stand upright.
"Who needs another fruit bowl? Nobody," Vingerhoets said. "But why not this?"
The high life
The average person probably doesn't need a $3,500 cappuccino machine, but Capresso, Inc., which won Best of Show at the convention for its Impressa Z5 Coffee and Espresso Center, has found a market for it.
"We have 51 products in sky suites at MGM," Michael Kramm, president of Capresso, Inc., said. "People use them at home, in their office, on their boats. We have some who have them in their planes."
For those who can afford it, Impressa Z5 basically takes away the theatrics of making cappuccino and espresso.
"It makes cappuccino with one push button," Kramm said. "You never move the cup. It grinds the beans, takes cold milk, siphons it, heats it up, froths. You have a complete automatic coffee center. It tells you everything you want to know in five different languages. A 32-ounce milk container keeps cold for eight hours."
The bean sensor, which tells you if you're running low on beans, or the three cleaning programs, seems impressive. But with the milk container, Kramm said, "You don't have to get the milk out of the fridge and take it back."
For tea drinkers, Timolino, known for its travel mugs, thermoses and canisters, is offering an updated version of its Aromatic Australian Press, a portable coffee and tea press. The press, a reverse French-press design, has the user setting the carafe on the coffee cup. No pouring.
Thanks to OXO, there's no more struggle in picking up a cutting board.
"We're certainly not the first one to invent the cutting board," Gretchen Holt, spokeswoman for OXO, said. "But where other cutting boards are hard to pick up, we added this new tapered edge so you can grab it."
In addition to OXO's oven mitt with cotton interior, a finalist among top innovative product winners at the convention, the company was highlighting its plastic, non-sharp pizza cutter that it says cheese will not stick to. Its hand-held lemon squeezer offers a built-in divot to help directionally challenged consumers "orient the fruit" within the squeezer.
But what really comes to the rescue is its mango splitter, a tool that separates the flesh from the seed.
"It's very difficult to cut the flesh (of a mango)," Holt said. "This will always work."
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