March 19, 2008

Field Notes from Chicago

Hi everyone, I’m just back from covering the Housewares Show in Chicago. Although the days walking the halls of the enormous McCormick Center wears down the shoe leather, I love covering this show. It only happens once a year in March when 22,000 buyers from all over the world fly in to check out all the latest trends and nifty new products in categories ranging from kitchen appliances, cookware, gadgets, storage products, cleaning tools, tableware, small decoratives, and on and on.

I never fail to be fascinated by the staggering amount of new products, color trends, and amazing inventive ideas for things that will save people time and effort in the kitchen, bathroom and other rooms of the house, help them get organized, or fix their hair with a fabulous new tool.

This year I arrived on Saturday, March 15, also the day Chicago chose to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, and the parade was lining up as I drove in from the airport. Later, the pubs on every corner you walked by were packed and spilling out into the street with festive folks sporting green somewhere on their bodies. And I had to take a stroll to the river, which is famously colored green in honor of the day. And folks: It's really green; the color of unset-lime green Jell-O to be accurate.

It’s a time when I run into old friends I’ve known for years at different companies. And I even ran into my home intern from last Spring, the awesome Caitlin Devereaux Bart from FIT:

She’s working at Cuisinart now, and was in the secret room where they show editors a preview of products which will launch a few months away. And Caitlin told me her exciting news: She’s engaged!

A quick roundup of some trends I spotted:

The Green trend was everywhere, and many manufacturers showed the passion by revealing cookware that had been a couple of years or more in development.

• For example, Scanpan showed new cookware, Green Tek, which took them two years to develop. Scanpan had their factory come up with a replacement for PFOA and find an emulsifier that is both environmentally friendly and biodegradable, and all their cookware has been manufactured with this new compound since Spring 2007.
• Meyer introduced a line called the EarthPan which doesn’t use PFOA’s in the production process.

My dear friend Florence Sheffer, from Meyer Corp, shows off their new EarthPan.

• Cuisinart introduced The Green Gourmet line of hard anodized cookware, which is produced without the use of petroleum or harmful solvents and is PTFE and PFOA-free. It also uses 70% recycled stainless steel for their handles and packages in recycled boxes printed with biodegradable soy inks.
• Ming Tsai leant his charismatic presence to the TRU BAMBOO booth, where they showed some great new introductions he endorses, all which fall under the green umbrella.

My photo with Ming Tsai

Lots of celebrity product endorsements.

• The biggest news? Paula Deen’s 200 different products launched with Meyer Corporation. There were fabulously fun, pretty and practical pieces that spanned categories from cookware to knives to baking tools. I was told Paula was really nice and great to work with.

Paula Deen's cookware introduction for Meyer Corp.

• Rachael Ray added a couple of new products to her line with Meyer Corporation.
• Chef Devin Alexander (of The Biggest Loser Cookbook and show fame) introduced a line of cookware with Meyer as well. And I got to have dinner with her, which was a LOT of fun! Devin sure knows a lot about cooking healthy food, and revealed some tips I’m going to try to implement! Plus, she gave me a copy of her book, so I can really test some of her recipes at home.
• Famous British tea authority, Jane Pettigrew hopped over the pond to help launch Bonjour’s amazing new electric tea maker “Fine T”. It’s a fascinating appliance for people who really love tea, and in this appliance one can prepare different types, like green tea, by heating the water to the perfect temperature and brewing it the right amount of time. I had the extreme pleasure of sitting next to Ms. Pettigrew at another dinner, and she was brilliantly knowledgeable about tea ceremonies, tea varieties and how and where tea grows. Coming from a family of big tea drinkers, I soaked up the information. And realizing that the tea business has exploded to a $6.5 billion business, there is certainly room for an upscale tea appliance to help brew different varieties to perfection.

Fine T maker

• Mario Batali had a huge booth with hundreds of products from Copco from cookware to bakeware to dozens and dozens of gadgets.

Color! Big news was bright color on cookware, bakeware and tools of all shapes and sizes. From metal cookware that slides into bright colorful melamine square bowls to go to the table to bright yellow and green bakeware from Kuhn Rikon, splashes of color were seen everywhere.

Spanish culinary tools. Lifetime Brands scooped up distribution on another huge company, Vasconia, which has an old history in Mexico. The most exciting thing was seeing all of these tools now able to be bought in one place, hopefully. They had everything from enormous paella pans to a Molinillo (a wooden dowl-like tool that one spins in your hands to froth milk in an aluminum pot used to make hot chocolate). There were so many useful tools, like a double lime juicer tool and an avacado knife.

Next up: My top 10 favorite items from the show (with pics).

Posted by Monica Forrestall at 1:15 p.m.

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Fine T Maker
Great thread! There's a UK review of the Meyer Fine T Maker at Fine T Maker Review and a link to the UK website, Fine T Machine. Matthew
Posted By: Matthew
2008-05-14 1:40 AM

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