If you’ve been looking for a manual can opener that works — quickly and easily, without hurting your hands — take a peek at the rather pompously named Kuhn Rikon Auto Safety Master Opener. Carol just got one and she has been raving about it.

Carol’s super-hard to please when it comes to can openers, and rightly so because
(a) she’s got arthritis in her hands (young as she is; it’s a genetic thing, sadly); and
(b) she has a couple of pre-teen kids with tiny hands who like to help out in the kitchen.

If you can get past the name — and maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t Kuhn Rikon Auto Safety Master Opener sounds like a gadget that Wile E. Coyote would order from Acme in the old Saturday morning cartoons? — you’ve gotta like the idea of being able to open can lids without touching the edge, especially since those sharp metal edges on food cans (or pull-tab cans, too, sometimes) can be a real hazard for children.

Safe, ergonomic and just plain cool.

The Swiss are famous for packing multiple tools into a single package. The Kuhn Rikon Auto Safety Master Opener has all the features of the Kuhn Rikon Auto Safety LidLifter can openers. It is now possible to open a can and never, ever touch the lid. … The tool cuts from the side leaving a rim smooth, not sharp or jagged. … Safe, ergonomic and just plain cool. Plus, it makes quick work of opening bottles and cans with pull and pop tabs, threaded caps and flip tops.

I have to admit to being tempted, though I’m not totally unhappy with the OXO Good Grips Can Opener I’ve been using since about the dawn of time. The nice fat handle is pretty easy on the fingers, but my old clunker doesn’t always cut a nice smooth (safe!) edge when I try to open a really tough can.

Why not an electric can opener?
You may well ask.

Here’s our thinking: It’s one more energy-sucking device to put pennies on our home power bill, one more appliance to clutter up the kitchen counter (or have to pull out and put away again every time you want to use it), and what are you going to do in an emergency situation, if the electricity goes out and you want to open up a nice nutritious can of luncheon meat to keep body and soul together?

Nah, I’ll take a manual can opener, thanks.

Bonus Tip for Bargain Hunters

This particular Kuhn Rikon super-fabuloso can opener comes in your choice of three colours: green, blue, and red. $19.99 the each. But right now on Amazon you can get the red one for $15.95. It’s exactly the same can opener with all the same features except in a different colour — but it’s a lower price!

This “bargain hunter’s secret” can apply not just for can openers, by the way, but often for all kinds of products you may need. Credit goes to DJ for pointing this out to me, a short time back, when he was shopping for a electronic toy. For the particular make and model he wanted, the trendy colours all cost more than the basic black. Since he wanted a black one anyway, that just all the better!

So, remember, if you are flexible about the colour choice, you can quite often get an extra good deal on all kinds of stuff. Look around, you’ll see!

Less than two years ago I saw, I fell in love, and I bought – for close to $100 at the time – the sleek retro stainless steel Cuisinart DCC-1200 12-cup coffee maker.

Don’t make the same mistake!

But let’s go back to the rosy, sweet, early days of my appliance relationship…

Right from the start, I loved the Cuisinart’s retro-nostalgia aesthetic – the rounded edges, the cool on/off toggle switch, the low-profile buttons for self-clean and setting the timer clock – enough to cheerfully overlook some of the many design flaws you’ll find other DCC-1200 owners sounding off about in the customer reviews at Amazon.

Oh,  just a few small annoyances at first…

For example, the coffee maker is fairly tall and the water reservoir must be filled through a fairly small opening on the right hand side near the back, so it’s awkward for short people or left-handed people.

Also, it lets a huge amount of steam escape while you’re brewing a pot of coffee, so you’ve got to make sure it’s pulled well out from underneath your upper cabinets when it’s turned on, or the steam can damage the wood.

The Cuisinart DCC-1200 did seem to come up short by a cup of water every time, however – perhaps that explains all the steam? – so if you wanted to make 12 cups of coffee, for example, and you poured in 12 cups of water, you’d only get 11 cups of coffee when it finished the brew cycle.  Never a full pot.

Some people report a lot of spitting and gurgling, but that was not my experience, particularly. My guess is that it might have to do with the mineral content of your water, but that’s just a wild guess…

All in all,  no biggie.

Right?

Especially since this was my first – yes, my very first! – coffee maker with a built-in timer to brew automatically.

Before, I’d always gone with the cheap manual models, whatever brand was on sale in the $20 range, every couple of years, when the old coffee maker gave up the ghost.

This time around, I figured I’d get away from the “disposable” and buy a brand name I’d always associated with high-quality products, go for a model with timer so I could wake up to the smell of delicious coffee in the morning, and get a really good-looking coffee maker instead of the cheap-looking plastic same-old same-old.

Besides, it’s “green” to go with durable, high-quality goods: we’re supposed to buy the best we can afford, so it will have a nice long product life, making good use of resources and all.

Yeah, that’s the theory…

Within a year, my beloved Cuisinart DCC-1200 started to have problems.

First, the clock would randomly reset to 12:00, as if there had been a power outage. Not every day, not in any particular circumstance, nothing you could predict and work around. Just, some mornings the coffee would be all brewed at wake-up time, and other days the coffee maker just never came on – the clock reset before the timer could kick in.

Then, just for laughs, it would sometimes brew just part of a pot before turning itself off. (That’s just cruel.)

And then, after a couple of months of that, the whole display would go dead at random times. No clock, no timer, no way to brew coffee at all.

Sometimes, if I unplugged the coffee maker for a while and then plugged it back in again, it would decide to work again for a day or two, but eventually that made no difference at all.  See, on the Cuisinart DCC-1200, everything is wired through the clock and that lovely toggle switch is spring-loaded so you can’t even turn it on and use a timer plugged in at the outlet, the way you might put lights on a timer when you’re away from home. When the clock display goes blank, that means no coffee for you!

The only thing to do was wait for the coffee maker’s little LCD brain-clock to miraculously light up again, and hope it would keep working just long enough to squeeeeeeze out a pot of coffee before it decided to crap out again.

And now it’s dead.  Two days, three days, nothing…  Begging, muttering, swearing, plugging and unplugging, button-pushing and tapping gently on it’s stainless steel faceplate in hopes of waking up the magic elves inside? All to no avail.

RIP little Cuisinart.

There’s a 3-year warranty, in theory, but I’ve been hearing all kinds of horror stories about the hassle you have to go through (and shipping charges) only to get what may very well be another faulty unit.  Turns out, some of our family members have already been down this road with Cuisinart coffee maker, a different model but still…

Another option: someone over on Fixya.com gave instructions for  taking your Cuisinart apart and baking its circuit board (in the oven!) to repair the “small fissures” that apparently can develop over time. But, c’mon, that’s a bit much for even a DIY-keen Domestik Goddess in the circumstance, what with NOT HAVING COFFEE in her!

I give up.

The lovely attractive retro Cuisinart DCC-1200 coffee maker is sitting out on the back step, ready to go to the landfill.

And on my kitchen counter, in its place?

Back to the ugly and functional. There’s yet another of those ugly old $20 white plastic manual Proctor-Silex coffee makers I’d grown to depend on over the years… and it’s just plugged into a outlet timer at the wall.  And, so far, the new appliance setup is working just fine.

But my heart has been broken, my kitchen decor has been downgraded, and my faith in “reputable” brands  has been irrevocably shaken by what I suspect is just a few cents worth of shoddy electronics made in some offshore sweatshop factory.

No wonder the world’s in rough shape, eh?   I’d switch to drinking tea full-time… but you don’t want to get me started on dripping tea-pot spouts, and last year’s frustrating quest to find an electric kettle that wouldn’t start fires and would keep working for more than a month!

So, what do you use for a coffee maker? (I’d sure welcome your recommendations!)

There’s a lot to be said for the sleek European style kitchen designs — the “clean aesthetic” that favours flat surfaces, neutral colours, and a pristine countertop free of all clutter — but it can be hard to pull off in an open-plan home.

Real life has a way of leaving its traces… despite all our good intentions!

Stilll, there are tips and tricks we can swipe from the top kitchen designers to help get a bit more of that clean open minimalist look into a real family home’s real working kitchen.

Trend Ideas is showing a fabulous Leuschke kitchen, for example, that started out as the typical closed-off kitchen of the 1980s. The architect opened out the kitchen to the rest of the house — a much better fit for today’s family tends to live, now that Mom isn’t stuck in the kitchen like a character out of Happy Days — but still found some practical ways to keep the kitchen mess out of sight. The layout relies on a few cleverly placed partitions and frosted glass sliding doors to conceal the pantry and such.

One unusual feature is a simple frosted-glass panel on the long kitchen island — just enough to keep the sink area out of the sight-line of seated guests, but not high enough or solid enough to visually break up the wide-open spaces.

My own decorating taste runs more to the cosy-boho-vintage eclectic, to be honest. I’m not sure that I could personally enjoy an afternoon of baking in the midst of so much white laminate and so little colour, but that’s a small quibble… and it’s easy enough to introduce a shot of colour where it counts, without losing the look.

The key here, I think, is that even those of us with widely differing tastes can learn a lot — and find a lot of excellent ideas to swipe and adapt for use in other kitchen decor styles — by browsing photos of designer kitchens that do showcase the “clean aesthetic”: Ernestmeda and ALNO would be a couple of good starting points.

And speaking of good taste… finally, here’s the egg separator of my dreams.

I usually go one of two ways with the task of separating eggs: either avoid egg-separating recipes as much as possible, or do a little finger-dance routine with a wooden spoon and two measuring cups. The latter method takes great skill and dexterity, neither of which are guaranteed on any given day. And you’ve got to do one egg at a time, that way, so an accidentally broken yolk won’t spoil the whole batch of whites.

So for years I’ve been meaning to pick up a conventional egg separator gadget, to make that cooking task easier. But, well, you know how that goes…

And now — here’s a truly crave-worthy egg separator, cunningly handcrafted as a big-nosed pottery person. What a perfectly useful gadget, and a great fit for my own whimsical kitchen decor, hint hint! Or maybe pick one up to keep on hand for a hostess gift, or for the next time someone invites you to a kitchen-themed bridal shower?

Just break the eggs into the ceramic container, tilt it forward, and voila! Your egg whites will stream, oh so elegantly, out of those pottery nostrils — whites all nicely separated from the yolks — no fuss, no mess, if perhaps a few giggles from your kitchen crew.

(And, why might we want to be able to separate the yolk from the egg white? Don’t all answer at once — but hands up, everyone whose first thought was of light-as-air meringues to impress your mother-in-law? Okay, now, and who says souffle? Omelet? Sponge cake? Waffles? Well, you get the idea.)

Peter Petrie Egg Separator is $12.99 at Stupid.com
(Hat tip to Tal Siach)

The green-living experts tell us that the average family could reduce their garbage by as much as one-third, just by composting kitchen scraps and other organic wastes. Looking at the foot-path worn down from the house to our own compost bins, I believe that waste-reduction estimate!

The worst part of composting, for me, is the stinky old plastic ice-cream containers I keep under the sink to collect the veggie peelings and crumpled tissues and spent tea-bags.

One of these days, I’m going to brace my wallet to get a stainless steel beauty… maybe even one like this Canadian-sourced unit that mounts right in a kitchen countertop.

I’d never heard of such a thing before, but HWHTPT was drafting up a kitchen plan just last week that called for Blanco Solon’s organic waste bin to be installed right beside the prep sink. The minute I saw it… well, there’s a new entry in my Kitchen Wish List scrapbook!

Why bother, you ask?

Because of the best part of composting.

While my garden sleeps away the winter months under a blanket of snow, our coffee grounds and carrot peelings are turning into a gorgeous rich soil amendment and fertilizer that’s light-years beyond anything the garden centres have to sell in their big plastic bags.

When spring comes, I’ll scoop out the oldest compost from the bottom of the bin and run it through a wire mesh to catch the finest bits in my wheelbarrow, then use that fine dark compost to get my young seedling plants off to a wonderful start on the growing season.

Frugal, green, and productive of food and beauty… vegetable waste is turned back into yummy homegrown vegetables. In my books, that’s as close as you can get to household magic!

Technorati Tags: kitchen, composting, containers

A discerning friend spotted the Chroma 301 kitchen knives in the Lee Valley catalogue and pronounced them “stunningly minimalist” — among other terms of enthusiastic praise for their sleek design.

One look, and I’m inclined to agree with the man.

Yes, you’d have expected a set of kitchen knives designed by F.A. Porsche to have a curving, flowing, aerodynamic line, wax-buffed to a glossy shine, but this is more of an industrial-inspired aesthetic.

These implements clearly are meant for the Inner Iron Chef who chops and fillets deep within every keen cook… but are my kitchen skills worthy of such functional elegance, I wonder?

Technorati Tags: knife, Porsche, design

For those who secretly (or not so secretly) thought that my Talavera daydream was a bit “over the top” — and okay, I admit it’s kind of wild as bathroom decor goes — then maybe this beautiful pair of kitchen sinks will speak more to your taste?

See how the glossy black tile countertop sets off the intricate Mexican design.
Mmm, lovely!

Talavera is the name of a type of Mexican pottery originally from the cities of Puebla, Mexico, and Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato, Mexico.

While it is named after Talavera de la Reina, a city in Spain, the term “talavera” is most often used to describe the Mexican derivation of this art pottery. The painted pottery of Spain would be more appropriately referred to as majolica. It is said that the Catholic priest Father Miguel Hidalgo influenced the development of this pottery style. Today, this name defines also other forms of ceramic art specific to the same area.

Two of the hottest trends for a modern kitchen makeover are continuing to gain ground, partly because a sleek techno-industrial style is the perfect place to splash out with those vibrant high-fashion colours that give such life to a decorating scheme — lime green, cobalt blue, burnt orange — without taking it over the top…

And what are those must-have items for a contemporary kitchen? Stainless steel — think commercial-style appliances in a brushed metal finish — and a crisp tile backsplash or accent strip, preferably in a horizontal subway tile rather than the traditional squares.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to take that urban-contemporary kitchen decor to the ultimate conclusion, with a backsplash made of stainless steel subway tiles?

In a small space, the look would be clean and cool with an emphasis on pure function, very hip, but you’d definitely want to go with stainless steel appliances.

In a larger kitchen, where an unbroken line of sight is less critical, you could stick with the traditional white appliances or do a custom colour, then use the stainless steel subway tiles on the walls all the way around. The metal tiles can quickly and easily update the decor as they serve to bring the different elements of the kitchen together.

You could even think about siding an island or wheeled butcher-block utility cart with stainless steel, either in a flat brushed-metal laminate (Formica makes a nice version) or in the stainless steel tiles.

And what about the rest of the kitchen decor?

Some of the modern-style kitchens that we’re seeing the North American builders installing in new homes, by default, seem to be more conservative — a tinted white paint on the walls, for example — which may appeal to the masses but doesn’t do justice to the full beauty of stainless steel.

Stainless steel almost begs for eye-popping bright colours to set it off in proper style, or else for the interesting contrast of warm traditional wood cabinetry, sparked with just a touch of accent colour that’s brought into the decor with a selection of easy-to-change accessories and kitchen linens.

Let’s blame a childhood of reading those Curious George books — who can resist a fresh clutch of giggly monkeys?

Clockwise from upper left:

• The Chimp is an archival quality print by Shannon Brady at BlueFlip Art (h/t emma).
• S-shaped monkey hooks, set of 3 in brushed stainless steel, are by Bodie and Fou, found in their kitchen section.
• Multi-imprinting, iron-on Monkey Love embroidery pattern, an 8½ x 11″ sheet with full instructions for getting started in embroidery, by Sublime Stitching.
• Crochet monkey toys, designed by ohsewpretty, appeared last fall in Crochet Today magazine.
• “Stackable, desktop, magnetically appendaged Bender Monkeys ” twist and bend to amuse any cubicle dweller. (They come in a set of four bright primary colours, packaged in a metallic embossed banana-shaped tin, with their own storybooks full of “illustrative poses” — where else, but at Think Geek?)
• Kay Bojesen’s teak monkey is a well-known wildlife mascot in Denmark — this one is found at Fitzsu.

I’d forgotten all about this until just now, but I had a very similar wooden monkey as a teenager. I remember how comforting and smooth it felt in my hands, and how it seemed to take on different facial expressions from sympathetic to cheeky to downright evil… Somewhere along the line, in one household move or another, my wooden monkey went missing… but maybe that explains this secret affinity for monkeys!

Cindy has a lovely lemon theme going on in her “Romantic Home” and has shared some photographs of her favourite pieces.

I’m equally charmed by her pretty white three-tiered serving dish (Cindy heaps it with realistic-looking faux lemons and limes in the summertime) — and this kitchen chalkboard, made by her father and crowned with a lemon garland.

Look at the way the tendrils of the vine pick up on that fine detail on the corners of the frame. Perfect, isn’t it?

It’s more common to see apples or strawberries for a fruit theme in home decor, here in Canada, but those happy lemons do give a bright “twist” (forgive the pun!) to a refreshing blue-and-white colour scheme…

Really, you have two main style choices in going for a lemon theme, both equally attractive but in different moods. Go bright and bold — or subtle and nostalgic —

This lemon switchplate (Stowe Craft Design) shows the bold option — strong clear colours, with a Deflt or cobalt blue and true lemon yellow as the accents against a relatively pure bright white, the lines clearly defined and the lemons in a stylized form…

Or try the same three colours — white, blue, and yellow — toned down for more of a feeling of French Country Antique, as in this La Frutta lemon print fabric for window treatments and table linens.

Either way, lemons make an easy light-hearted theme that wears well from season to season. In summer, keep it spare and clean — like Cindy’s white bowl of fruit. In winter, play up those lemons with a shot of antique gold or rich burgundy against a warm creamy white, nestled among evergreen boughs on a mantelpiece or as a luscious tabletop arrangement to welcome guests.

I was thinking Gifts for Newlyweds here, but can’t we all use a little love in the morning?

The pink heart-shaped frying pan — non-stick, thank heavens! — is from DotComGiftShop. How cute is that? But no eggs for me, thanks. Who can look at a yolk in the morning? I’ll go for tiny little heart-shaped pancakes, smothered in maple syrup.

And what do we use to mix up the breakfast o’ luv, but heart-shaped measuring spoons and measuring cups (both at Red Envelope). The cups are aluminum, but the spoons are food-safe pewter made in Rhode Island by traditional methods, which is rather a nice thought.

Each cup or spoon is engraved with a heart-warming measurement — a dash of humor, a pinch of kindness, a spoonful of fun, a cup of love, and so on — but don’t worry, the traditional measurements are written there too!

“Tea for one” might not be quite what we’re going for here, but I can’t resist this hand-painted nesting teapot and mug set (DotComGiftShop). The brushwork is so free and casual, and I particularly like the use of both pink and red in the hearts pattern. Not to mention that big fat round comfortable comforting shape. There’s a heart-patterned coffee mug to match, if coffee is more your newlyweds’ beverage style…

I stumbled across Julia di Biasi’s multimedia mosaics last night, while searching for information on Biasi boilers — there’s a rapidly dying ancient hot-water furnace in my basement, a sad story I’ll spare you for today — one of those delightful moments of serendipity that make the web so much fun.

Mosaics are endlessly fascinating to me, and I confess to a weakness for whimsy and colour (as regular readers will have figured out) — di Biasi’s artwork scores on all counts.

The artist says:

My fine art mosaics and mosaic murals are made from glass, ceramic tile, and my own hand-made and hand-painted tiles, which are fired, broken, and combined with brightly colored found objects from around the world to create unique designs.

In addition to her art mosaics and murals, it was a pleasant surprise to come across some photos of a mosaic kitchen (countertop and backsplash) as well as mosaics in an outdoor patio wall, a garden gazing ball, bath, and studio floor.

(In my ideal world, home decor should incorporate fine art — and art should not scorn to be occasionally functional!)

Julia di Biasi is also the founder of myAtlantis, a philanthropic organization focused on charitable public art. Gotta love the myAtlantis tagline, a quotation from Oliver Wendell Holmes:

Have faith and pursue the unknown end.