Forget about the hot plate, in today's high-tech kitchen, ingenious design marries time-saving convenience with sleek good looks.
Home Technology
Not Your Mother's Kitchen
Start your engines; it’s post-time for kitchen appliance innovation.
BY
Gloria Gale
PHOTOGRAPHY
Courtesy Sub-Zero and Wolf

Microprocessors, electromagnetic energy, induction, convection — high-tech talk for the future? Hardly. The smart kitchen has arrived.

That’s dandy, but there are folks who still can’t figure out how to work a microwave. All of which leads to appliances that simplify the effort, something Ted Selker, MIT’s Counter Intelligence group researcher at Media Lab in Cambridge, Mass., is taking very seriously. Currently, Ted’s team is working on smart refrigerators that tell you when food is spoiled, how much is left of the apple pie you made last week and takes stock of your food inventory via cell phone while you’re at the grocery store.

“That’s the whole idea behind innovation,” says Geri Higgins, owner of Portfolio Kitchen and Home. That is a giant leap considering your humble fridge in the not-so-distant past was a box cooled by a block of ice; now, that box makes its own ice.

There is a learning curve, but the outcome, no matter how you slice it, is convenience — which is exactly what Karen Watts wants. She gets goose bumps when she turns on her Wolf duel fuel six-burner range. Karen, who toggles between Dallas and Kansas City writing about and styling food, loves the advanced technology. “I’m completely over the moon when it comes to smart appliances,” she says. “There’s so much in the marketplace that makes life easier.” So goes the dilemma of modern kitchen technology: It has to be smart but simple, often resulting in paying a premium for effortlessness.

“This is my Ferrari,” she gushes. “It’s the ‘whoosh’ from Wolf’s 16,000 BTUs and enough firepower to forge restaurant-style cooking.” All she had to do was turn a dial.

Karen demonstrates the ease of cooking for a crowd in Lenexa-based Roth Distribution’s superbly outfitted concept kitchen. Grabbing the door to a professionally styled stainless-steel refrigerator, she pulls out 20 individual salads, totally delighted with the fact that she doesn’t have to bother covering them before serving. With perfect moisture/climate control built into this Sub-Zero Pro-48 fridge, there’s no need. “It’s the Cadillac of cooling,” she says.

Sub-Zero has perfected more than just the inside of its appliances. “It pioneered adapting units behind decorator panels, creating total seamless integration with kitchen cabinetry,” says Sally Borel, marketing manager for Roth. The company’s innovation stretches beyond decorative panels and pragmatic technology. By putting modular refrigeration anywhere it’s needed, convenience becomes site-specific. Pellegrino in the master bedroom or beer and snacks in the entertainment room? No problem.

Like Sub-Zero, Thermador has enhanced its design, building ergonomically friendly refrigerated Freedom Columns that can be mixed or matched throughout the kitchen. 

LG, meanwhile, has raised the art of multi-tasking to a higher level. Before you reach for the orange juice or even before you open the door on the fridge, tune in to the morning news on a 15-inch LCD TV. Check the weather, review your calendar, and load family photos, recipes or listen to a DVD, all digitally faced on the front of the box. 

Forget the weather. No news is good news, and when the calendar is full, you need caffeine. So long Starbucks. Now there are built-in coffee ‘systems’ that do everything but hand you the cup. Miele’s Whole Bean/Ground Stainless Steel Coffee System digitally grinds, brews and froths your cup-o-Joe.

Dacor takes this hot idea a step further, offering a cold compartment for one quart of milk built into its brewing system. For a whole lot of beans, ($3,199 msrp) you can be your own barista. To quell sticker shock, relax and grab a glass of wine. Today’s smart wine storage cabinets nestle between fridge and freezer or tuck smoothly under counters. With discreet lighting, exact temperature zones and vibration-free shelving, your reserve is well cared for.

Equally masterful is the high technology incorporated into ovens and ranges. 

TurboChef will blow you away, literally. Its advanced rapid air-speed technology cooks everything 15 times faster than a conventional oven: turkey in 42 minutes, chocolate chip cookies in 4 minutes flat. Now that’s cooking. Gaggenau features a unique 24-inch lift-oven that fits snugly into a smaller kitchen. This wall-mounted unit moves vertically for ease of loading. 

Duel convection electric ovens, integrated modules for frying and steaming, and duel-fuel gas ranges with multiple burners — it’s the cook’s choice. Adding to the parade are induction cook tops. Ultra-safe and flame-free electromagnetic energy heats the cookware, not the surface. Heat sensors know when to cook and when not to. A seamless top promotes easy cleaning, and because it uses no fossil fuel, it’s a ‘green’ product.

Wolf’s induction technology’s sensing feature turns off automatically when a pan is removed from the surface, while Siemen’s induction cook top uses touch slide controls for precision heating at the touch of a finger.

Heating up the market is Sharp’s Insight Range, combining a 3-in-1 cooking center. A glass ceramic cook top, conventional oven and microwave drawer are combined in one appliance. 

Still, Lauren Murphy, Factory Direct Appliance client, loves her standard Maytag Gemini series double oven. “It’s terrific,” she says. “Two wall ovens allow me to double up on food preparation while saving time. Nothing fancy, but pizza in the top and chicken in the bottom makes life sweet for my family.”

Smart kitchen technology will become more Internet-equipped as prices fall.

If you can’t wait, Connect Io Intelligent Oven Pro Series is the world’s first appliance that integrates a refrigerator inside of an oven. Before you leave for the day, slip the roast in. Whenever you wish, connect remotely via phone or Internet to start the oven, and when you’re finished with your day, so is the roast.

Simple, convenient and intelligent, and Ted and his team at MIT are busy creating more. They’ve already developed kitchen knives that detect harmful bacteria, a smart sink that prevents scalding, sensors that cast a red light over a hot stove to warn children and a system to detect slippery spots on floors. Without a doubt, tomorrow is today as technology leaps forward.