Burning Down the House

I’m a big foodie and an even bigger dish whore. Working for Pottery Barn for two years took its toll on my cabinet space; I have over 17 different styles of dishes to compliment the season, occasion, or even the color of the food I’m serving. No, I don’t mean 17 place settings–I mean 17different styles with anywhere from 4 to 12 place settings each. After about the first year of PB employment, I started sneaking dishes in the house following a binge purchase. You know what, though? I covet every one of the plates and use them all. I respect the food enough to give it a nice resting place before I devour it.

This brings me to an interesting philosophy about kitchens and kitchen design: do you live to eat, or do you eat to live? The answer to this question is what guides me in designing beautiful and functional kitchens for my clients. If you’re a prosumer foodie (like me), then we’ll agonize over the work triangle and which surface will tolerate the greatest thermal shock and how many btu’s we can afford on the cooktop. If you’re a…well….non-foodie, then we’ll look at aesthetics first and make sure that the three meals a year you cook in your kitchen are able to be easily prepared and that the binder with all the carry-out menus is close at hand.

The prosumer (professional consumer) trend is a direct reaction to the rise in popularity of FoodNetwork. The high visibility of celebrity chefs has lulled consumers into thinking that if only they had a professional grade stainless steel 6 burner Viking stove, they’d be able to kick Bobby Flay’s ass. So off they go to the the Viking dealer with too much time and money and not enough product knowledge. They install the beautiful new commercial range, try to whip up a meal tasty enough to make Bobby Flay cry like a little girl, and realize as a blaze starts halfway through the sauce reduction that a fire suppression system and insulated sides would have been a really, really good idea.

Enter: prosumer appliances. Manufacturers like Viking, Wolf, and Jenn-Air have created a new line of residential appliances for consumers who lust after the professional features without the hassle of fire suppression systems. The prosumer line allows the cook to play with some serious btu’s (generally 15,000 at the high end for wok cooking) and have much better control (450 btu simmer feature) while being able to reconfigure the burners with cool extras like a griddle or grill. The prosumer line is the perfect answer to consumers who lust for professional grade appliances. Whether you’re purchasing for vanity or utility, you’ll rest (and cook) easier knowing that what’s NOT on the menu is burning down the house.