Outfitting the Kitchen, Part One: Electrics

Setting up a second home earlier this year was a necessity born of a choice, but it was also a re-education in the library of skills that comprise the act of setting up a household. These include such obvious and leaden-sounding stalwarts as assessment, organization, and time- and funds management. These are important to be sure, but I would argue -- in fact, have recently had demonstrated to me -- that equally important are experience if you've been lucky enough to amass any, and excitement. Setting up homekeeping is a big task no matter how many times you've done it and no matter under what circumstances you're doing it. But it is also exciting, and not just because you get to go shopping (though that definitely counts). It is exciting because you are engaging a crucial dimension of living in the most concrete of ways. Setting up a household cements the reality that you have a home; and that with the responsibility of maintaining home comes the privilege of creating home.

Each time you set up a home, it brings into focus what you know but it also exposes you to developments and innovations you may have missed. Last spring, I was writing about buying a new sewing machine. Concurrent with that we were also shopping for a new vacuum cleaner. John and I tend to buy for quality and then expect longevity and service as returns on investment, and for the most part that works for our household. Thus when it finally transpired that we needed to replace the vacuum cleaner, it was a learning experience to encounter how so simple and vital a tool has evolved. (To learn which vacuum cleaner we chose, click here). When we arrived in California, part of the challenge -- and the fun -- of setting up a second home was learning what was new and exciting and balancing that against what we knew to be solid and dependable.

One area of home goods that have definitely evolved since I outfitted my first urban home over two decades ago is kitchen electrics, which your mom referred to as small appliances and your grandmother regarded with a wait-and-see attitude. Both the style and the substance of what's available on the contemporary market far outpace the offerings in an old S&H Green Stamps catalog. That's not as oblique a reference as it sounds, for in that first urban kitchen, my tastes were so retro that I sought out stores that still vended old-school small appliances, which in those days in New York City was not that difficult to do. For years, we made coffee in an electric percolator (they still sell them in Macy’s Cellar) and griddle cakes in a four pronged electric skillet of the kind that was a consolation prize on weekday morning game shows. I still appreciate a nice old-fashioned kitchen, but years of homekeeping have taught me that a kitchen can radiate that kind of warmth without risking electrical fires from shorted circuitry or old-timey plugs.

As we set up our west coast urban home, we decided to investigate everything within reason and then choose from there. That gave us the opportunity to consider anything that struck our fancy, for we knew that we would filter any decision through practicality. We learned a lot this way. Contemporary kitchen electrics are designed with an eye towards style but they are sophisticated in other ways as well. Most can only operate when they can do so safely, a quality whose importance cannot be overemphasized. A cornerstone of small appliance desirability has always been accomplishing a singular task (think of the electric can opener), and this is an area where kitchen electric design leads the homewares industry. Aside from that can opener, there are appliances to do everything from frothing milk to (my personal favorite) making hand pies.

Unsurprisingly, one thing that hasn't changed is cost. Electrics run the breadth from dirt cheap to shockingly expensive. Here we return to quality and longevity. Anything you obtain for your home is an investment, and any business person will confirm that any investment should yield a return. It is important to remember that while a high price tag does not de facto equal high quality, a low price tag does not de facto equal a good value. An item that you will use and that will withstand the usage by effectively and reliably providing service is what defines a good value, and then your decision is how much you are able or willing to pay for that. All of the items below have been filtered through that consideration as it applies to our home.

Finally, remember that not just with kitchen electrics but all of the small electrics in your home, good storage practices are vital. While choosing items for your need- and want- lists, you will need to take both counter- and cabinet space into consideration. In the kitchen, this includes keeping electrics and their peripherals in proximity to each other and within reach for you. Some homekeepers address this by storing electrics in their boxes, but this is not a recommended practice. Store electrics that you use frequently on the countertop or within an easily reached cabinet or drawer, and those that you use less frequently (especially seasonally) in a cabinet devoted to them or in the pantry. And for goodness' and safety's sake, don’t wrap the cord around the base of the unit. Gather the cord into a figure eight, and secure it with a twist tie.

OUTFITTING THE KITCHEN: ELECTRICS

This list is a synthesis of items from both of our kitchens, and it is a list of suggestions rather than a comprehensive checklist of essentials. As always, none of these is a compensated endorsement. This list is based on my ongoing experience as a homekeeper and lifestyle author.

There is nothing like moving to Los Angeles to make you feel fat, and no remedy for that but a gym membership and some will power. Cuisinart’s Quick Prep Immersion Blender quickly and effectively mixes that post workout protein shake – it’s even packaged with its own cup. But even if you never approach a treadmill, a stick blender is a vital tool for the kitchen – aside from shakes and smoothies, it is invaluable for sauces. Be careful not to contaminate a blending element used for creamy substances with oil – either stock a second stick blender to make emulsions, or, as we do in our urban kitchens, use Williams Sonoma’s Chef'N Salad Dressing Emulsifier.

For a traditional blender, satisfactory functionality includes variety of settings, safety and ease of operation, and ease of assembly/disassembly and storage. Cuisinart's Smart Power Seven Speed Blender meets and surpasses all of these qualifications. It can proceed from a simple stir to a powerhouse whirlwind with the press of a clearly identified button, and is so well designed that the blades cannot whirl unless the unit is securely covered and locked down. It crushes ice, which is of inestimable service to the urban bar. As with most of Cuisinart’s electrics, the blender is available in a metallic finish as well as a variety of colors for brightening your kitchen. The food is the star attraction, but in our urban kitchen, the colors of choice are orange and black, both of which are among the widely available colors.

Speaking of Cuisinart, once our shakes subside serious beaners embrace that manufacturer’s Brew Central 12 Cup Coffee Maker. One of the reasons this manufacturer is so well represented on this list is foolproof design. For the coffee maker, this includes a stairstep measuring guide inside the water chamber and click-lock filter systems that insure that the unit cannot operate unless it is correctly set (a blessing for any non-morning person who is stumbling through the coffee making ritual). Regarding that, it is easy to figure out how to program such simple but vital functions as automatic start, plate heat (medium-high), and turn-off time (20 minutes maximum). A burr unit is the best grinder for grinding those beans, but good ones are costly. At our urban coffee bar, we use Cuisinart’s Grind Central Coffee Grinder. We are religious about the practice of cleaning the coffee maker once a month; as noted in last year’s spring cleaning column, in our urban home we use Dip It.

That morning coffee calls for a side of toast or an airy waffle. Oster has been a staple of kitchen mornings since not long after the John Oster Company, then a manufacturer of personal grooming electrics, merged with Stevens Electric to form a cornerstone kitchen appliance manufacturer. The Oster Two Slice Toaster does its job with all of the necessary settings and a reasonable price point, and with slots and mechanisms that can handle anything from a dainty English muffin to a burly bagel. If those are practice carbs for you, try Chefs Choice 852 Classic Waffle Pro. This waffler is swift and intuitive, two qualities appreciated by any waffle chef confronted with the outstretched plate of a waiting waffle eater. It is a worthy successor to the Vitantonio Premier Belgian Waffler than I received as a Christmas present over a decade ago that is, unfortunately, no longer in production.

I have enough of my grandmother in me to prefer the simple and the good to the fussy, so I am judicious about which electrics I use in my urban kitchen. There are some tasks for which, though I have tried the electrics, I have found that the manual method remains the best. My grandmother made popcorn in a three-legged cast iron skillet known as a spider. Absent a hearth, I pop corn in a caldero, a wide-bodied lidded metal pot common to Hispanic kitchens. This low-cost one time investment performs perfectly whether you oil-pop or air-pop. As for juicing, we are so low tech about that that you can read about it in the following column about kitchen tools.

That said, I am sure that, after decades of wrestling with such dinosaurs as the clamping metal jaws of a steel meat grinder and the sci-fi scary wheels and dials of an aluminum pressure cooker, there are many electrics that my grandmother would have welcomed into her kitchen. While a good kitchen knife, a sharpening stone, and a knife dock are vital for every kitchen, I find that Cuisinart’s Mini Prep Plus really does make light work of chopping vegetables for cooking. As with all of their electrics, the foolproof design is utterly safe and effective to operate, as the blades cannot whir until the unit is locked, and the pulse buttons keep you in control of the chop. For white rice at dinnertime, no kitchen electric replaces a good saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, but for large quantities of white rice and any quantity of brown rice, Panasonic’s 3-Cup Rice Cooker is infallible. I was turned onto this invaluable electric by no less a collection of sages the staff of the homewares department of Pearl River Mart. Finally, though you don’t need an electric to make ice cream, Cuisinart’s Classic Ice Cream Maker does it simply and deliciously. As you would with any recipe, it is important to pay attention to measures, for the canister is on the small side, but with this caveat, an entire summer of ice cream, sorbet, and gelato is never more than a mixing bowl and a freezing element away.

Speaking of mixing bowls, everyone, including readers, who visits my kitchen usually expresses surprise that I don’t have a stand mixer. I knead dough and roll pasta by hand, and for batters I use a Hamilton Beach Hand Mixer that was one of the first kitchen electrics I bought. This little workhorse has mixed countless cake batters and performs just as effectively today as it did twenty years ago. That said, I am getting married in a few weeks, and if anyone wants to ante up for a KitchenAid Stand Mixer, the color I like is persimmon . . .