2008's greatest hits, volume one

2008 was a really good year, all things considered. This blog took over a bigger part of my life about half way through and it's a welcome outlet for my energies. Although I don't consider every post on Kitchen and Residential Design to be a showcase of my writing skills, there are a couple pieces I've written this year that stand out in my mind. Just in case you missed them, here are some 2008 posts I'm proud of:

• How to Buy a Granite Counter
  
• Meet Christopher Peacock
  
• I Love  a Solution
  
• Vintage Floors from Italy
  
• Best Use of a Garbage Bag in a Starring Role
  
• And Away We Go
  
• Exeunt Omnes
  
• Mid-Century Classic Furniture Meets Prosthetic Leg
  
• A Bahamian Breakfast
  
• Great Source for Outdoor Showers
  
• Knock Off or Theft?
  
• Here's What I Mean by a Good Knock Off
  
• A Faux Re-education, or What I learned on my Summer Vacation
  
• Saturday Stop and Think

Well, there's the first half anyway. I doubt the Blogosphere's equivalent of a Pullitzer is heading my way any time soon, but I think I do a fine job with this thing.

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Gaggenau's rethought the wall oven too

Yesterday, I wrote about Gaggenau's Vario modular cooktop system and their cool downdraft options. Well, my pals at Gaggenau do some really cool things with wall ovens too.

Wall ovens are pretty cut and dry things, most of them work pretty much the same way and they look pretty similar, regardless of the brand. That is, except for the wall ovens offered by Gaggenau.

Here's a 24-inch wide single oven with steam and convection. Now a 30-inch is the typical size for an American wall oven, and Gaggenau has several models in that size. What's important here though is the position of that handle. Pretty much all ovens have bottom hinges and a door that drops down as it opens. That's probably a throwback to the days of wood-burning stoves, but it doesn't make much sense in 2008. It's pretty much how people expect an oven door to open despite the fact that it's pretty inefficient for them to do so, but a lot of times tradition trumps efficiency. This inefficiency is particularly noticeable in a wall oven.

Think about it, retrieving anything from the oven involves reaching out over a really hot piece of metal. Then, in order to pick something up, you have to do it while your arms are fully extended and at their weakest. Now imagine what it would be like to have an option.

Well, you do. Check out the location of the handle on that single wall oven up there. The handle's on the left side of the appliance and that makes it a right-hinged wall oven. If you were to stand in front of that wall oven and pull something out of it, you wouldn't be reaching or extending and to me, that makes an amazing amount of sense.

Here's the same idea in a double:

In this appliance, the handle's on the left, making this one right-hinged as well. In appliance land, we refer to the side the hinges are on as the identifier, not the side the handle's on. That sounds pretty inconsequential until you go to order one of these things. It's the kind of expensive mistake that keeps me awake at night. But anyhow, what's cool about Gaggenau's built-in ovens is that you can specify the hinge location when you order one. Pretty cool and so far as I know they are the only manufacturer in town with a right- or left-hinge oven door.

Once again, the images I'm running today came from AJ Madison, your online appliance one-stop-shop.

Nobody does downdraft ventilation as well as Gaggenau

Gaggenau is a brand of exquisitely designed luxury kitchen appliances, and their 2009 catalogs arrived for my library last Tuesday. Now, I enjoy talking about and specifying appliances as much as the next guy, but Gaggenau's offerings fire my imagination like nothing else on the market.

Gaggenau makes a series of modular cooking components called Vario. Vario started with a 200 series and has been joined by the Vario 400 series. The Vario series approach to cooking appliances is fantastic and though there are other component systems out there, no one does it better than Gaggenau. The 200 series consists of eight, 12-inch components and the 400 series offers 10, 15-inch components. You combine as many or a few of these components together as you like for a truly custom approach to cooking.

The image above shows a 400 Series, 15-inch wide, large, single induction burner; a 15-inch double induction burner and a 15-inch Teppan Yaki grill. Vario components are only 20 inches deep and in the case above, they've been placed in front of an AT 400 Backsplash Ventilator.

Another ventilation option that works int he Vario series is their telescoping downdraft ventilator shown here.

I've seen on of these things at work and trust me when I tell you that there is nothing else like it available anywhere. I swear, it's like something you'd see in a movie. The Gaggenau VL051707 is fully motorized and it comes to life as it rises into position. Once extended, you can swivel it a full 360 degrees and position the downdraft blower precisely where you need it. Downdrafts are notorious for not working as promised, but in the skilled hands of Gaggenau, downdraft technology actually works.

These Vario components are but a fraction of the innovative appliances developed and available from Gaggenau. Wait 'til you see what they do with a wall oven!

Depending on the market where you live, finding Gaggenau appliances can be a challenge. Mercifuuly, that what the Internet's for. The images above are from AJ Madison, an online appliance dealer who ships nationwide. They stand behind what they sell and their prices are the best I've seen. Check them out!

Movie of the Week

Since it's the Sunday of a long holiday weekend, and since I don't feel like writing about kitchens or design today and since I found the incredible website Hulu.com, I'm going to have today be movie day. Yes, a movie day on my blog and it's all perfectly legal.

Hulu.com is a website run as a joint effort by NBC and Newscorp and what it is is a library of current and classic TV shows and movies that you can watch for free. Check it out. It's the future of entertainment and I'll bet the cable industry's keeping an eye on this thing.

Anyhow, what I'm presenting today is a 1992 remake of the classic John Steinbeck novel, Of Mice and Men. The movie stars John Malkovich and Gary Sinise and Roger Ebert called it a quiet triumph.

And now, our feature presentation:

It's gone too far. Officially.

It's the Sunday of a holiday weekend and I'm due a good Sunday morning rant. Here goes.

As if convincing people that tap water's somehow unhealthy weren't enough, the good folks at Pepsico are now getting into the skin care racket. It's strangely appropriate that the bottled water industry should snuggle up with the skin care people though. The skin care industry has been misleading the public for more than a century by preying on most people's scientific illiteracy and wrapping itself in a cloak of medical respectability. It's all a load of crap. 

Save your money. It's true that skin can dry out in a dry climate, and the best substances on the planet to remedy this are mineral oil, petrolatum and glycerin. Mineral oil and petrolatum are byproducts of oil refining and glycerin and its derivatives are a byproduct of the breakdown of plant or animal fats. Not really very glamorous sounding, are they? Glamorous or not, they are the foundation of every cosmetic moisturizer out there and they cost pennies a pound. The rest is marketing. Period. Things like lavender extract, elderberry extract, sage extract and my favorite; olive fruit oil (spare me) make skin preparations smell better and that's about it. Using these plants' Latin names doesn't make them any more effective; and unfortunately, too many people stop asking questions when they see terms they don't understand.

I love how the good folks at Pepsico slapped an Rx to their logo to make the whole thing seem scientific and medical but it's a lie --a marketing ploy.  Rx is medical shorthand for the the Latin recipe, the singular imperative of the verb recipare. Recipe means take and it carries with it the weight of a doctor's orders. "Here, take this." No doctor not in the employ of Pepsico is ordering you to take this or any other overpriced reformulation of mineral oil, petrolatum and glycerin.

Save your money folks. Drink tap water and buy a tub of Vaseline to soften up your dry spots. And please, for the sake of humanity Pepsi, stick to making soda.