Im-pressed

I had never heard of Kuhn Rikon until recently. My garlic press of choice had been the Susi garlic press, recommended by Jeff Smith, who was once seen all over PBS before the ignominious accusation of pedophilia drove him from the air, and then, he passed away. This man who did as much to popularize cooking as anyone, loved his Susi press.

But if he had ever had a chance to try the Kuhn Rikon 2315 Epicurean Garlic Press, I feel certain he would have raved over it. This thing is pricey, no doubt about it. It cost nearly 3 times the Susi, running a price of 40 dollars. But it looks sweet, and it crunches pretty sweet too. And more ingenious than that, it cleans well without the plastic insert device that was clearly the drawback of Susi. You had to keep this blue or red plastic thing that was meant to poke out the garlic skin so you could clean it.

Having said that, the Kuhn is still better pressing peeled garlic. You can press it with the peel still on, but it seems to do a better job if the peel is removed. Furthermore, it feels like it can only hold about one largish garlic clove at a time. But the pressure needed to crunch the garlic seems quite a bit less than the Susi press, and it looks absolutely great, resembling more a carpenter's tool than a kitchen gadget.

If you're willing to put some bucks to something nice, give this a try.

Simple Man

I bought my first simplehuman product. This company, I have to admit, is pretty clever. Its name is interesting. People who get stuff want to be organized, lead a simple life. Thus, simplehuman in its lowercase lettering has an inviting name, that suggests simplicity.

At a price.

The first product it's noted for is a metallic step wastebasket for a whopping hundred--even nearly two hundred dollars. It looks nice. It works well. It's the Dyson of wastebaskets. But is it worth 10 times the cost of a cheap plastic trash can?

simplehuman encouraged a bunch of other companies, from Oxo to Polder to iTouchless, selling expensive trash cans has become the new expensive vacuum cleaners (which had prices upwards of five hundred dollars).

I wanted to get a "nice" dish rack. I got one, and it was moderately cheap, looked nice, but didn't hold dishes up very well. I realized that it's mostly an exception. I brought my Crate and Barrel squarish dish and tried it out on several dish racks at The Container Store and at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I hadn't planned on spending forty bucks on something that normally costs 15 bucks.

What made it easier was that my previous purchase wasn't so good (and I returned it), and so I was willing to spend more to get something nicer. I should have decided on size. My kitchen isn't all that big. This dishrack is huge. And I don't have that many dishes. Having said that, it is nice. And what made it nicer was the prodigious coupons that Bed, Bath, and Beyond sends like every week. It gives 20% off any single product. That's pretty good if you have a big item purchase.

And I put a 40 dollar dishrack in a big item purchase.

In any case, I've succumbed to the allure of this company. It's still plastic and metal made at a bargain. It's not meant to last through a sledgehammer or even a hot car. But for now, it's giving me a modest amount of happiness. Next time, I'd get something smaller.

Pressing Matters

I've been into garlic presses ever since the Frugal Gourmet (Jeff Smith) recommended the Susi garlic press (made by Zyliss) lo those many years ago. I had maybe 3-4 of these garlic presses. One of my former roommates once used it to prop something up in a pan and caused the garlic press to turn some odd shade of purple. But then, he did a lot of weird things. He'd make oatmeal, found it too hot to eat, stick in in the freezer, and completely forget it was there. He'd heat something up on the stove, and get bored, go to his room, and read until the pot was burning the food because he completely forgot he was cooking something. This happened not just once, but several times.

Recently, Cooks Illustrated rated garlic presses, and while the Susi press had been winners in years past, the newly declared winner was the Ruhn Kikon Epicurean garlic press. Now, this garlic press isn't exactly cheap. A relatively cheap garlic press might cost 7-8 dollars. The Susi press maybe 15 dollars. This one is 35 dollars.

Even so, it's really neat. The one huge problem with the Susi garlic press was cleaning it. It had a plastic insert you had to use to push the garlic pieces out of the holes. If you lost this piece (and it was easy to do), you'd have a hard time getting out the garlic.

Ruhn Kikon has a particularly clever solution. Most garlic presses require you put the cloves in a small bin, with the holes in the bottom. This bin is tiny, so it's hard to reach inside to clean it. The clever solution? Find a way so there's not a bin.

To give you an analogy. Think of a hallway. At the end of the hallway, there's a door. The door has large holes drilled through it. Imagine a large clove of garlic, big enough to fill the hallway, being pushed through the door with the holes. The garlic extrudes through the holes. But your fingers are huge too. They fill up the hallway, making it tough to clean the hallway.

Now, if the door would open up, then you could reach more easily reach the holes and clean up the press.

Although the mechanism isn't quite like that, it's close enough. Basically, the part with the holes swings away from the side walls, and makes it easier to clean. I still have to try it out mind you.

Oh, I got this mail order via Amazon through a company called The Handy House which surprisingly is about 40 miles north of here.

I had thought that it was lost somewhere along the way, and sent email to see what was going on. I had been used to sending stuff to my company where the receptionist usually lets me know it's arrived, and I picked it up. Instead, being US Postal mail, they did the "obvious" thing, which was put it in my "mailbox", which I rarely check since very few things end up there.

In any case, Ruthy, the person in charge, was very helpful, and was willing to send me a new one if I couldn't find it, but there was no need for that.

On the downside, I got one of the camera tickets. Apparently, I went through a red light and was caught. That kinda sucks.