"alessi" news and stories

As Valentine's Day approaches, there certainly won't be any shortage heart-shaped things, whether it's a gift to give your sweetheart, or something for you to use in the kitchen.

The Big Love Ice Cream Spoon by Alessi comes from Italy and is made of shiny stainless steel. It's perfect to start your Valentine's Day with breakfast in bed (a bowl of Special K can be very romantic, you know), and to end your evening with a bowl of ice cream. The spoons come in a set of four, but let's hope that you only use one...to share!

The spoons are $39.90, available from Amazon.com.

I have a problem. The timer on my oven is broken. Truth be told, I'm relieved because it went out in a blaze of glory - by which I mean that it made its high pitched beeping sound for about 2 days straight. By unplugging the oven, I was able to shut it off temporarily that was only a temporary solution, as I still wanted to use the oven. Now that the timer has passed on and I still have a functional oven, I am forced to rely on a temporary timer until I buy a new one.

I saw on Apartment Therapy: Chicago, they had picked out a list of the top ten kitchen timers, including the Michael Graves Alessi(bottom left, above) for $29.50, the Eva Solo Magnetic (right, above) for $33 and an Old fashioned aluminum timer for $24.99. To be honest, even though the Alessi timers are cute, I don't like any of them. I need a digital timer with a good alarm and neither of their two digital picks (an Oxo and a Taylor) mentions anything about their alarms in their product descriptions.

Digital timers not only come with better alarms than dialed timers, but they're much more accurate in terms of the times you can set them for. You'll never have to approximate, like you do with dials. I'm currently leaning towards the Big Digit Kitchen Timer (top left, above) or the Bonjur Timer, based on alarm noises alone. Is there such a thing as a best timer? What timer do you use?

 

Can someone please explain to me why salt and pepper mills are so bloody expensive? Even the most ugly, nastiest sets are upwards of £25; I am assuming it is the same world wide. I mean they are not that complicated an item to make are they?

Do manufacturers apply a mass of research and development funds on the screw or the crusher bit? I doubt it. For something decent, that isn't going to clog-up or crack or generally foul-up you need to spend even more. This set from Alessi (OK, so it is Alessi) costs £72 (around US$125/AUS$170) for the set. Thats a bit of metal standing 11.3cm (13.2cm for the pepper mill) high topped with a bit of coloured plastic.

Still want 'em though!

Source