Monday, June 27, 2005

Utensa-palooza

Sam Breach over at Becks & Posh has issued a challenge to all food bloggers: Name the one splurge kitchen appliance you couldn't live without.
Well, I've given it a lot of thought. A lot.
You can have your Miele this, your Gaggenau that and your Thermador whatever-the-heck else... but I wouldn't be able to go near my kitchen if it weren't for my dishwasher.
I'm not kidding. Is this a familiar sight?

It was a daily nightmare in my 60-year-old "original charm" (i.e., no modern amenities, not even a garbage disposal) kitchen, before we fled the egregious upscalification of Mill Valley a few months ago. Standing over a sinkful of dirty dishes really gave my aging back a serious case of the twinges, and sometimes things, er, piled up.
So we escaped to a not-quite-so-old (heh -- 30 years) condo where the dishwasher in this "new" place is probably also 30 years old, but hey, it works, and it lets me cook. No more accumulations of moldy bowls, crusty plates or greasy spatulas. And best of all, no cluttered counters. I don't need to show you a picture; you know what your dishwasher looks like.
Yes, occasionally I have to give the old girl a little assist with this perky pink adjunct:
But my days are vastly improved. So enjoy your KitchenAid, Bosch, Wolf -- all fine and dandy, but only if the dishes are clean.
Oh, and one more thing. My favorite cheap kitchen item has to be the 1.5-quart slow cooker, $10 at Walgreens. It's good for beans, greens, grits -- anything soupy and stewy. I even made a cake in it once, although now I'm devoted to my super-duper dual-fuel convection oven... But that's another story.

4 comments:

Sam said...

Thank you Cookie Crumb. When I remember all my childhood without a dishwasher and how my sister and I would have to toil away after every meal because it was one of those chores allotted to us, I can certainly see why you would choose a dishwasher over anything else.

thank you for taking part - I look forward to rounding all the entries up to create a shopping list, hopefully by next week sometime.

Sam

Anonymous said...

bwah! i just bought a 100 year old condo. guess what. no dishwasher.
however, did you know that you can buy dishwashers as small as 15", and even portable ones? on wheels? that you can roll up to your sink when you need to use it? it's a thought.

cookiecrumb said...

No sir! They had condos 100 years ago?!
My mom had a rolling dishwasher back in the '60s. Yes, it was my job to load it.
When this 30-year-old jobber gives up the ghost, I'm thinking about one of those KitchenAid 2-drawer thingies. One for delicates, one for really cruddy stuff.
And, once again, Sam: Huge thanks for linking my blog.
xoxo

cookiecrumb said...

Oh, must add, knitter:
Buttonwillow McKittrick!! What a hoot. Me, I'm more of a Pumpkin Center girl.
(You remember the KSAN DJ Beverly Wilshire? No, probably not if you're a knitter... too young.)