March 25, 2008

Best of Show

Finally, I’ve had a chance to look through all my notes from the Housewares Show in Chicago (I filled an entire notebook, cover to cover—including writing on the covers!). Although some of these products won’t be in stores for a few months, I thought I’d show a few sneak peeks. From the hundreds of things I saw (some of which I got to test myself), here are a few of my favorite things:

KWIK Vacuum

KURV Vacuum

1. Karim Rashid, a designer of epic proportion, has expanded his Designer Series line of small vacuums for Dirt Devil to include the KWIK desktop vac ($29.99; available Sept ’08)). Designed for your office desk area for dry spills and getting dust out of your keyboard, it also comes with a crevice tool. His last offering, a hand held vac KURV, looks a little lava lampish and comes in tons of bright colors. Karim’s all about inventive (often award winning) shapes and colors. Interestingly the PR gal talked about homeowners are moving away from wall to wall carpeting to hardwood floors, so there has been lot of development in vacuums for carpet-less surfaces and alternative use, like these two puppies.

KitchenAid stand mixer

2. Pear was the new home color. KitchenAid showed this fresh, happy hue in a line of kitchen electrics, including their stand mixer, hand mixer, 5-speed blender and food processor. Described as a blend of avocado of the past and chartreuse (in feng shui lingo it’s the color of creativity) it fits in perfectly with everyone’s new green attitude.

Colorful bakeware from Kaiser

ISO bottle

3. Colorful bakeware in loaf pans, bundt shapes and spring form pans from Kaiser. Also loved Alfi’s 18/10 stainless “ISO” personal water bottle ($35; alficarafes.com) fits the green theme well, by eliminating the need to continually buy plastic bottles of water. If you put ice cubes in this lightweight baby your drink will still be icy cold hours later.

Salad Chopper bowl by OXO International

4. The Salad Chopper bowl by OXO International is the perfect tool for those who eat salad every day. You just toss your rinsed lettuce leaves into the bowl, and with the handy rolling chopper, slice up your greens directly in the bowl you can then serve out of.

Sea Salt Shaver from Microplane

5. Sea Salt shaver ($24.95; microplane.com; 800-555-2767) from Microplane, fits in with a trend of using exotic ingredients for cooking. Rock salt is an exceptionally hard substance, and this high-performance grater is engineered to maintain a sharp blade for shaving even the hardest rock salts. It comes with a chunk of Himalayan Pink Sea Salt and is designed with an ergonomic, soft touch handle for comfort, in a pretty seaworthy aqua color.

Legno scale by Soehnle

6. The Mid Century modern style Legno scale by Soehnle ($69.95) is the most beautiful bathroom scale I’ve ever seen. (I might have to buy this for my husband who’s crazy about this era of furnishings). This stylin’ digital scale is covered in a natural wood veneer with a rich espresso grain accented with stainless trim. Your tootsies won’t get chilled with this warmer to the touch surface that’s also extremely water proof and scratch resistant. It turns on and off as soon as you step on or off the scale, and has an easy-to-read 1.1-inch LCD display.

Can opener from Kuhn Rikon

Silicone whisk from Kuhn Rikon

7. Ratchet-style safe edge can opener from Kuhn Rikon is easier on the wrist to use than previous safe-not-sharp-edge can openers. I also loved, for a splash of kitchen rainbow color, their multicolored silicone whisk ($14; factorydirect2you.com; 866-233-6587), an eye-catching budget priced color accent and heat resistant to 450 degrees.

Dish drying rack by KitchenAid

8. For a small kitchen, the new colorful dish drying racks by KitchenAid from Lifetime Brands that expand to fit over a sink are great counter-space savers. It comes in great cheerful colors like red (shown), yellow and turquoise.

Beater Blade by New Metro Design

9. Watching the Beater Blade by New Metro Design in action was a why-didn’t-someone-else-think-of-this-before moment for me. It’s a traditional flat beater blade attachment for a stand mixer, with an inventive and useful spatula scrapper attached to the edges. This allows you to incorporate butter and sugar into your recipe 50% faster than was previously possible with a flat mixing blade. It comes in different sizes and styles to fit all the different styles of stand mixers on the market.

10. I loved the steam flat iron from Conair. I watched it in action, and for those of us addicted to the flat hair look, this tool will get the kinks and bumps out of your locks, without excessively drying them out.

Mauviel's copper cookware

11. I drooled over Mauviel’s beautiful crate of high-end copper cookware, perfect for bridal gifting. The 5-piece set is packed in a beautifully crafted white pine wood crate embossed with a black Fleur-de-lis. The 5 piece M’Heritage set (shown) includes 6-inch Sauce Pan with lid, 9.5-inch Sauté Pan with lid, and a 10.25-inch fry pan. Made from 2.5mm of copper, they are the best conductors of heat, heating up and cooling down quickly. Why does this matter? Well, since the pans cool down quickly, food stops cooking when removed from the heat so sauces aren’t overcooked and meats keep a crisp, brown surface and juicy interiors. The pans are made of 90% copper lined with stainless steel and feature cast iron handles.

Pinguino portable air conditioner from De'Longhi

12. Pinguino portable air conditioner (model PAC W130) from De'Longhi is one of the first “greener” units. It not only draws less power to operate, but uses a new eco-friendly refrigerant gas as a coolant.

Posted by Monica at 5:13 p.m.

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