A visit with Sub- Zero/ Wolf

I am on my way to Madison, WI this morning and I ought to arrive there some time this afternoon. I'll be in Madison through Thursday and by then I'll know more about dual compressor refrigeration and cutting edge cooking appliances than I ever knew there was to know. I can't wait.





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In the interest of disclosure, Sub-Zero/ Wolf is footing the bill for this trip and I'll be writing about my experiences with them in Madison for the next few days. Sub-Zero/ Wolf is a brand I trust and specify under usual circumstances and it's a brand loyalty I developed long before there was any talk of my being flown to their headquarters.

My posting schedule will be a little off through the end of the week and I'll post things as I can. I promise lots of photos, good stories and since I'll be cooking in a Sub-Zero/ Wolf test kitchen for part of this week, recipes and tips from the Sub-Zero/ Wolf chefs.

Sub-Zero/ Wolf has been making great appliances for more than 60 years there's no end in sight. I'm looking forward to seeing the wonders that await me on their home turf. Here are their websites: Sub-Zero and Wolf.

If anybody has some questions or anything else he or she'd like for me to look into while I'm in Madison this week, either leave me a a comment or shoot me an e-mail and I'll do my best.

How do you light a Modernist bordello?

Now that Fiorentino's figured out how to light a Modernist bordello, the rest of us can relax and move onto more pressing issues. To wit:

What possible use could these things have other than classing up an already classy joint in Reno or Sparks? My only concern would be from having that much acetate so close to a heat source.

Too harsh? Is there any redemption to be had?

Sterling Surfaces turned around my bias against solid surface materials

Sterling Surfaces made me see solid surface in a whole new light and they did it with this chair.

Solid surface is a category name for products such as Corian, Hi-Macs, Avonite and many more. Generically, solid surface materials are made from mineral powder bonded with acrylic or polyester to form a dense and resilient material.

I met Sterling Surfaces last winter on Twitter (where else?) and they've been blowing me away on a very consistent basis. I've sat in these chairs in Grand Central Terminal on at least two separate occasions and I was amazed when I found out who made them.

You guessed it, Sterling Surfaces.

Sterling Surfaces hails from Sterling, Massachusetts but they work every where. I've seen high-quality fabricators before, but I've never seen anything like this:

After watching that video, I'm ready to start specifying some serious thermoforming.

You can find more information about solid surface, thermoforming and Sterling Surface's place in the world on their extensive website. In addition to their website, they maintain a large image library in their Flickr stream. You can find them on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter too.

These people are not only great at what they do, they get the whole social media thing and that's one more thing to like.

Sterling Surfaces' work has made me rethink an admittedly strong bias I have against solid surface. I know I'm not alone in that sentiment and I guess I get it from too many years in the trenches and seeing too many botched solid surface installations. There's no chance of that here though. Sterling Surfaces is rehabilitating an entire product category and for that they deserve an award. Actually, they get them all the time.

Blanco Germany takes the idea of an integrated cutting board as far as they can

Check out this sink series from Blanco Germany. Actually, these sinks are available all over Europe and the UK and if the stars align, we'll see them in the rest of the world eventually. These ideas are too good for them not to spread.

First up is the Blancoalaros sink.

The sink itself is made from Silgranit and it has two drain boards to either side of the bowl. Cutting
boards fit into grooves in the sink rim and can slide along the length of the sink.

In the image below, the Blancoalaros sink's been paired with the Blancotelescope retractable faucet. When the faucet's in its down position, the entire space taken up by the sink can be covered with a cutting board. In my tiny kitchen, something like that would be almost three feet of found counter space.

In the sink above, the cutting boards are in Silgranit that matches the sink itself. The metal platform and stunning metal strainer are available as accessories.

Also sold as accessories for the Blancoalaros sinks are the Crystalline series of black and white cutting boards.

In an open, modern space a black sink cover/ cutting board would be the thing that really made the room perfect.

It's this kind of thinking that's made Blanco an industry leader on both sides of the Atlantic and as they increase their presence in the US, look for more innovations such as the ones I'm discussing here. I've seen other integrated cutting boards before, but I've never seen them so intelligently designed. Good job Blanco. See the Blanco products available in Europe here and Blanco's North American offerings here.

Dornbracht re-imagines the air switch

Back in the dark ages, the switch to operate a disposer was either a light switch on the wall somewhere near the sink or a light switch under the sink itself. Using a light switch to turn on the disposer, especially while I had wet hands always bothered me.

Well along came the first Air Switches. An Air Switch is a button mounted on the counter near the sink. Underneath that button is a bellows. When you depress the button, the bellows forces air into a tube and the tube's connected to a power pack that plug into an outlet under the sink. What this means is that no electricity ever comes near the button itself. Air Switches made it possible to operate a disposer with wet hands in total safety.

But, there's always a but. But Air Switches were made by InSinkErator and despite InSinkErator's sterling reputation as a manufacturer of disposers and hot water dispensers, there were only a few finishes available for the Air Switch buttons. The Air Switch button's finish never matched exactly the faucet sitting right next to it.

Enter Dornbracht.

Dornbracht is a 50-year-old German company whose kitchen and bath fixtures pretty much define the cutting edge. Exceptional design and exceptional quality back up every one of those cutting edge fixtures by the way. Dornbracht is not just another pretty face.

Well, Dornbracht just changed all that. Dornbracht now has coordinating Air Switch buttons for their free standing faucets and you can even integrate one into their Universal and Preparing Water Zones.

Good job Dornbracht, it's great to see them blazing yet another trail.