Santa Left Aliens in My Bathroom

First Published in "The Home Monthly" December 2004 Issue for the Hersam Acorn Press

There is an odd little creature in the master bath at chez Ploss, four of them actually. They are small creatures, approximately six inches across, and are either red or blue. They are bunniesque and there is nothing the Orkin Man can or should do about them. One clings for dear life to the mirror over my sink by its large ears and the other three are stuck in the shower, plastered to the omnipresent beige tile like a group of free climbers halfway up the face of El Capitan.

The three all stare at me with the same semi-disturbing smile as I go about my business in this our “bibliothèque de porcelain.” What is most disturbing is that Santa put them there.

Oh, Santa didn’t put them in the bathroom. He doesn’t even go into our bathroom; at least I don’t think he does. I suppose he would be welcome to “go” if he had to, I mean it’s the least I could offer besides the milk and cookies for him, the carrot for Rudolph, and the cheese for Santa Mouse (whose life story is chronicled in a delightful book by Michael Brown). Of course, now that I have mentioned even the possibility of Saint Nick using our facilities, we will have a new Plossville Christmas Eve tradition, that is, the wife-directed cleaning of the bathrooms.
The stockings are hung by our chimney with pride, so Santa puts assorted utensils inside.

You see Santa always fills Mom and Dad’s stockings with cool and unusual kitchen and bath utensils and other small items (although the term “bathroom utensils” makes me feel a little uncomfortable). Every year there are items from OXO GoodGrips, ConceptKitchen (things that make protecting and/or using your Palm, Handspring, or Windows CE devices easier), and for Mom the latest Maeve Binchy book about dysfunctional Irish families hanging out in and around Quentin’s, the town bar. Last year, these perennial items were joined by the bizarre creatures from the German purveyor of the strange and unusual, Koziol (http://www.koziol.de).

I had seen Koziol before. There are two stores in my neck of the woods that have carried their stuff for several years. Peter Keating’s Village Market had a rack at the end of one aisle (pre-remodel) that featured a Coco cake knife with its large serrated plastic blade and feet, which keep the blade off the table and give it a cartoon alligator at rest look. There was Lemmi the lemon reamer and the upright postured I-Scream ice cream scoop and Gina the pasta spoon. Meanwhile, Keeler’s Hardware was displaying the Tweetie vegetable brush and the aforementioned Bunny suction hooks.

There are a few Koziol pieces lurking around chez Ploss. We have the Tweetie vegetable brush, which, like a griffin, appears to be composed of parts from several different creatures. Tweetie has the feet of a smurf, the body of a duck, the head of a stereotypical LGM (Little Green Men or alien), and the hair (which forms the bristles of the brush) of Howie Long (the big guy from the Radio Shack commercials).

Another of the “ideas for friends” at my domicile is Lemmi the lemon reamer, also of polymer with a little bipedal body, smurf feet, and LGM head with a hair-do that resembles a traditional wooden lemon reamer. Dustin the whisk-broom/dust pan combo, which resembles a squirrel sitting on a large leaf, is a recent addition.
That we had Koziol in the house before realizing it is a testament to its design. We have had Elise, a watering can (plastic) for several years. Elise has a body that starts wide at the bottom, becoming narrower at the top to form the spout, which gracefully bends to one side. Several summers ago we also bought a pink Mendini. This is not an exotic libation from a bar on Queens Boulevard but a plastic beach tote, logistical support for those weekend landings at the condo pool.

Koziol has been creating “interesting” household items for over 70 years. Their tagline, ideas for friends, manifests itself in the grin that spreads across your face when you see and handle their products. They are cute. They are really cute. They are friendly. They foster in me the same feeling of subsurface mirth as when I see someone five foot, three, and 115 pounds trying to get into their Hummer H2, or hear Michael Moore referred to as a documentary filmmaker.

If there is a dark side to these little critters it is that they stare. They sit wherever you place them and stare at you. It’s as if they are begging to be handled and used. I may be getting paranoid but I caught Lemmi and Tweetie whispering something to Jake (the Java Programming Language mascot who sits on my desk) about Daggett (one of Nickelodeon’s Angry Beavers) who is perched on the bookcase across the room. Oh, they got quiet when I walked into the room but I know they are up to something.

As for décor? These products are definitely what one would call “stand-alone” items. From a design standpoint, they may not fit in with your décor unless you are creating a set for the Children’s Television Workshop. Even in a contemporary home, these items would fall into the non-blending category of household knickknacks. The very fact that Koziol does not blend is what makes them work practically anywhere. The life forms from Koziol seem specifically designed to draw attention to themselves, to be chuckled about but also to be used. If you want bathroom cups that match your toothbrush holder, soap dish, and wastebasket, go to Washcloths N What Have You or Lounge, Looffah, and Leave. Kozioloids are accents, exclamation points in a sea of normalcy.

These are tools designed with a liberal amount of glee. They must be. You cannot create an overweight shark named Kai P that dispenses dental floss without being a happy person yourself. So these little ambassadors of whimsy do just that. They create happy moments for those who see and use them. What more would you want by your sink?

They’re staring again.

Turkey Day and Turkey Verde

First Published in "The Home Monthly" November 2004 Issue for the Hersam Acorn Press

There seem few traditions in New England, indeed the whole country, more firmly cast in concrete than “one shall serve turkey at Thanksgiving.” In fact as I recall autumns past, I can remember clearly being in groups of people pre-Thanksgiving when someone responds to the question “What are you having for Thanksgiving dinner?” with ham or roast beef, only to be looked at in the same way as would Ricky Ricardo, playing his conga drums in a U-boat rigged for silent running. It is called Turkey Day for a reason. So as we hurtle headlong towards that beloved holiday when we give thanks for everything up to this point in the year, allowing us to cleanse our thank you palate before we hit the big time in December (which makes Thanksgiving the pickled ginger to Christmas’s sushi) ... a few random turkey thoughts.

First, at Thanksgiving, we celebrate the act of giving thanks. This was first done by a group of clueless Europeans who had decided to settle in Massachusetts in November 1620. Arriving in November and finding not only that they lacked non-porous housing but also that someone had left the canned yams, green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and French-fried onions at the checkout counter in the Plymouth Kwik Save, half of the Pilgrims (so named due to the fact that they were always in a bad mood and the outlook was not at all good) decided to spend the winter starving and/or freezing to death.

In the spring, Miles Standish casually mentioned to an Indian named Samoset who happened to wander into the settlement, “I say good fellow, we are like, starving.” So the Indians (as they were known then due to the fact that the self-same Europeans had initially thought North America was in fact, India), in one of the most stunning examples of hindsight being 20/20, offered to help.

The Wampanoags taught the ex-Europeans a thing or two about raising food and living off the new land so they could survive. In return, the Pilgrims threw a big feast and served wild turkey (the poultry), geese and ducks. As this was not only the first Thanksgiving but also the first pot-luck, the Wampanoags brought lobster, deer, clams, oysters, and fish. Because both Mrs. Standish and Mrs. Samoset insisted that everyone also get a good helping of vegetables, the Pilgrims also served cucumbers, assorted root vegetables, corn, and wild fruit.

After the feast, everyone sat back, unfastened their britches, and loosened their deerskin pants. The Pilgrims weren’t finished giving thanks so they threw the Wampanoags two other things, the diseases smallpox and diphtheria, which wiped out entire villages.

I can relate to the above historical text, for at Chez Ploss Thanksgiving is an almost joyous occasion that follows the Pilgrim traditions to the letter, except for the lack of Native Americans, venison, geese, ducks, lobster, clams, oysters, beets and turnips. Dinner is almost always turkey, semi-turkey, or Turkey Verde.

Thanksgiving while growing up meant turkey, stuffing (both wet and dry), yams, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy, pumpkin pie, and vanilla ice cream. Table condiments included gelatinous canned cranberry “sauce,” black and green olives, and really small pickles. When I got old enough, I was allowed to slice the canned cranberry sauce for serving. This involved cutting both ends of the can with the can opener, removing the bottom, and using the lid to push the solid cylinder of cranberry goodness out the bottom, pausing every 1/4 inch or so to slice and place it on the serving dish. This was replaced in the late 1970s by the cranberry/orange blender relish, which seems to have invaded the American Thanksgiving table like the walking catfish has taken Florida.

Carving the November bird was always up to dad. He began sharpening his knife (real men don’t use electrics) hours ahead of time. He was a master, a turkey surgeon as it were. When he passed away in 1975 it became my job, at 15 years old, to carve. It is a task I enjoy especially when I have good cutlery. The cutlery of choice right now is an Oxo Good Grips 12-inch slicer. It is not electric and not serrated in any form. It is a regular smooth-blade knife, which is sharp enough to cut through browned turkey skin. As a rule, I limit my intake of pre-dinner alcoholic party beverages so that I am able to handle the knife without having to make a trip to the emergency room of Norwalk Hospital.

I have been to Norwalk Hospital on Thanksgiving Day. I went when an unfortunate visiting member of the family slipped and fell on the way to the table (where my wife’s first turkey was just being set), causing a three-inch gash to open up on his forehead. When we got there the waiting room was filled with guys who each had one hand wrapped in a dishtowel. They were all victims of dull knives and carving while under the influence.

So it has always been turkey. The semi-turkey mentioned above stems from a trip made several years ago to the Johnstown/Gloversville area of New York State. I was told we would have the culinary experience of a lifetime, Thanksgiving at a turkey farm restaurant. I imagined tables piled with turkeys, golden brown just waiting to be worshipped, farm-fresh vegetables cooked to crispy perfection, and homemade pies. All those years keeping up the Ploss family tradition were to be validated.

When we arrived at the restaurant there was a line. This was made up entirely of people in their Sunday Best, waiting their turn at the well of hope. As you have probably guessed, the food didn’t (couldn’t possibly) measure up to the family hype. The meal consisted of a small pile of a deli-sliced turkey-like product with mashed potatoes in canned gravy, canned corn, and beans. Still, we were all together.

My first Turkey Verde was served at a friend’s house about seven years ago. My friend, like myself, likes to take culinary risks once in a while. Sometimes this is good, like the Puree of Root Vegetable (potato, parsnip, and carrot) Soup with Ham and Green Peas I served this evening or my roasted garlic mashed potatoes with Gorgonzola cheese. And sometimes not, like the Green Bell Pepper sauce for pasta I made, which turned my daughter off green sauces for several years due to the fact that both of her parents seemed to suffer some sort of gastrointestinal “distress” after eating it.

It seems that my friend had an unhealthy obsession with cilantro at the time. When it came time to “herb” the stuffing, cilantro was the herb of choice and the stuffing was chock full of it. As the turkey cooked, the juices seeped into the cavity of the bird where they passed through the stuffing, which served as a Mr. Coffee filter for the cilantro and gathered in the bottom of the pan waiting to be sucked back up and poured back over the bird before being turned ultimately into a gravy. They began to resemble the beer sold on St. Patrick’s Day. Since my friend is also an accomplished baster, the turkey began to take on the look of the Irish as the cooking process progressed. When it was placed on the table it had the color of a new marshmallow shape for Lucky Charms.

One area where we at Plosshaus seem to have issues is stuffing. Again, I tend to be more “out and about” than the rest of my family. My wife Laura, who descends from a long line of MAPs (meat and potatoes) fanatics, tends to the more traditional side of things. This is the Arnold bagged stuffing camp. My daughter would go against tradition if she was allowed to but I don’t see us having turkey stuffed with macaroni and cheese anytime real soon.

I, again, tend to hang out in the dangerous neighborhoods where seafood, non-traditional vegetables, and spices from non-English speaking parts of the world infuse non-traditional bread with smells and textures that one can only dream about. One of my favorites was a stuffing made from Freihoffer’s 12-grain bread, green pepper, celery, onion, blackening spices (now generically labeled Cajun in most mainstream stores), and crawfish tail meat. The recipe was “guess as you go.” It was pronounced “good” but not for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I have tried oyster stuffing and stuffing made with shrimp and bay scallops. Still, for the majority of folks who show up for a Pilgrim repast, it’s the tried and true all the way.

This is not to say that the folks (family and friends) I cook for are unadventurous. They will try almost anything. This has led to new discoveries such as the root vegetable soup, the roasted garlic mashed potatoes with Gorgonzola, Beef Wellington with Brie, three species of mushrooms reduced in Madeira, smoked and poached salmon with capers, onions in a cream sauce, and grilled asparagus. It’s just that holiday traditions are the toughest ones to buck.

I’ll hold out hope for gradual change. If canned cranberry sauce can turn to cranberry orange relish, then mashed potatoes can become roasted garlic mashed potatoes with Gorgonzola. I, however, refuse to give up the green bean casserole. After all, it’s a tradition.

The brave little toaster and the coffee pot that drools

First Published in "The Home Monthly" October 2004 Issue for the Hersam Acorn Press

I am an understanding kind of guy. Really. I understand that a refrigerator has but 10 or 15 years to give and I can accept that. Ours quit last week and was replaced by (no, we did not get the one with the digital camera) a nice GE freezer over fridge unit with an ice maker. Which is fine. But the failure of this centerpiece of the kitchen brought to mind the failure or glaring inadequacies of several other kitchen devices.

As I have stated here before, I am the latest in a long line of gadget crazies. My father was one. I remember back in 1969 making a trip to the Kress Department Store in Los Alamitos, California, so that we could be the first on St. Albans drive with a cassette player. The large Panasonic unit was about the size of a standard computer tower these days, not counting the speakers. It had a cassette player and AM/FM stereo radio.

To get the family to accept the new technology we each got a cassette... one. My brother got the soundtrack to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and I, who had just turned nine, got The Best of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, which of course is exactly the music every 9-year-old boy wanted in 1969. In the cooking arena, we had a Cossacque, which was a barbecue made entirely from the nose-cone glass used by NASA.

My gadget lust tends to land in two distinct areas these days, physically small computers and designer cookware/small appliances. Today we will address the latter.

Ever since I got into cooking back in the mid-eighties, and as a consequence big and tall shops shortly after that, I have lusted after various kitchen accouterments (I pronounce it the French way, a-koo-tray-mau, it sounds cooler). These have included the spectacularly heavy porcelain and cast-iron Le Creuset cookware to the classic standing mixer of KitchenAid, which cost approximately the same as the GNP of many South American countries. I have done all right, mind you. I have my two Cuisinarts, a drawer full of OXO Good Grips, a good set of knives, an ice-crushing blender, a deep fryer, and a stick mixer. All of which still function magnificently.

It is in the countertop breakfast-time appliance area where I seem to have angered the gods.
I have had four toasters in as many years. The first of the dead-toasters was an anonymous four-slot unit purchased from a store like Washcloths ’n’ What Have You, or Lounge, Loofah, and Leave. It may have even been a wedding present. It was a decent toaster. Handled rye, white, bagels, and frozen waffles like a champ until it up and quit one day.

My wife, it seems, was secretly pining for a toaster oven at the time of its demise and so the search began. One small issue, I don’t like toaster ovens – they are not ovens and they don’t seem to toast particularly well. I became depressed. I remained so until one day a new catalog came in the mail and there, on the cover, seemingly radiating shafts of golden sunlight while choirs of angels were singing “Ah, Ah,” was a sexy Italian convertible, the DeLonghi Convertible Toaster/Toaster Oven. This was the answer! Finally, a toaster that could do both toast and oven. We (I) had to have one.

When it arrived it still seemed too good to be true. A single long and semi-wide slot split the top of its sleek white exterior. When standing upright it was a toaster. You pushed a button and two grates emerged from the slot connected at the bottom by a “shelf” to receive your not-as-yet toast. Upon placing your toast-to-be between the grates and pressing the button again, the grates came together, gently taking it back down into the machine. It was as if they were saying to your pre-toast, “that’s OK, we have you now. Everything’s going to be all right.”

It was beautiful. When it was finished, it gently raised your toasted object back up like Rafiki holding a newborn Simba to the heavens in the Lion King. When you rotated the toaster 90 degrees on its long side, with the opening pointing towards you, it became a toaster oven. It had a tray and the grates became racks and you slid your toast with tomato and American cheese under the heating elements to warm it to gooey perfection.

As you can guess, there was a lot of rotating in our kitchen. First, we toast, rotate, and then melt the cheese. After about two months it had had enough and one day refused to rise up to accept my bagel. It was under warranty and was replaced by another, which lasted two weeks. This was replaced by another nameless unit, which lasted three months. Then I met (online at Target) Michael Graves.

OK, first of all, I already knew about him. The man whom The New York Times critic Paul Goldberger called “truly the most original voice American architecture has produced in some time.” I had seen his architecture and design work in magazines and books and had grown to appreciate his unique spin on things.

I admire Graves because he designs items that are organic in a smooth, rounded, comfortable-to-be-around kind of way, much like Jonathan Ives’ work at Apple, whose work I also admire. So I didn’t meet him per se as much as ran frantically to my computer to log on to Target.com when I learned he was designing housewares for the discount giant at a price I could afford. These were pieces every bit as spectacular as his Whistling Bird stainless steel teakettle, done for Alessi in 1985, which has become a design icon and sells for over $100. The Target pieces did not.

What I found and subsequently purchased was, and still is, Graves’ 1999 Industrial Designers Society of America Gold Medal Winning toaster. It is a beautiful white ovoid affair with his signature light blue “start toasting” handle and a light yellow “how dark” dial on the front, with small stainless steel disks arrayed like the floor numbers on an old elevator dial. This brave little toaster handles all kinds of bread, bagels, frozen waffles, waffle sticks, French toast, and pancakes with aplomb. The unit has been functioning quite well for over two years and, knock on Herman Miller, shows no signs of letting up. It is a constant source of conversation with guests.

In the coffee area, I have yet to fare as well. When our under cabinet Black and Decker's coffee maker quit, OK not so much as to quit as was figuratively thrown from a window, we went looking for a new one. We had to as this was in the dark days before Starbucks graced the gentle shores of the Norwalk River. Now I know that most folk under the age of 17 cannot imagine Wilton Center without Starbucks, but indeed there was a time, known by many as The Dark Ages when there was nary a Venti Decaf Hazelnut Latte to be had for any price in these here parts. I don’t know how we survived either.

We replaced it with a ubiquitous Mr. Coffee machine, which was like playing Russian roulette every time you turned it on. Chances were 1 in 3 that the “stop dripping while you take the carafe out to pour a cup” stopper in the bottom of the basket would clog. The basket would overflow and the kitchen counter would rapidly resemble a re-enactment of Moses putting the Red Sea back together, but as done by Exxon Valdez captain Joseph Hazelwood.

Taking pity on us, some friends gave us a Cuisinart Grind and Brew. This was like coffee Nirvana (the pre-grunge Nirvana), like Xanadu with caffeine. You poured in water and coffee beans, and you got a great cup of coffee. First, the coffee beans went in a hopper and the water in a reservoir. When the machine started, the coffee beans were rapidly ground emitting a sound, not unlike five pounds of gravel placed in a clothes dryer (don’t experiment, just take my word on it). The newly pulverized coffee was then blown up a chute into the basket.
It also, however, coated everything inside the coffee maker with a fine brown powder. Once the steaming hot water started to flow, some of the steam would “effervesce” into the newly coated cavities and join with the brown powder to form coffee-crete. Not as strong as concrete but just hard enough that the daily cleaning of the machine gradually got longer and longer until we were spending the same amount of time getting ready to make coffee that Henry J. Kaiser took to build a Liberty Ship. It was at this point in our lives that Q-tips moved to the cabinet with the filters and coffee.
When the Cuisinart quit we decided against having it fixed. We were tired, out of Q-tips and our hands smelt of old coffee.

To replace the Pulverizer I turned, once again, to Michael Graves and Target. I already had the toaster, travel mug, and salt and pepper shakers with napkin rack and was happy with all of them both stylistically and functionally. This time it was his white 10 cup coffee maker with light blue and yellow accents. Perfect. When it arrived we eagerly unpacked it and set it up (we don’t get out much) and went to bed like kids on Christmas Eve awaiting the magic the morning would bring.

I awoke the next morning to the smell of freshly brewed coffee sans the gravel-dryer sounds. I rose from my bed and walked into the kitchen to pour myself, and my wife, our first cups of coffee from the new machine. I got the mugs, the Equal and, for me, the half and half. I removed the carafe from the coffee maker and started to pour.
The beautiful stream of steamy caffeinated goodness flowing into the mug was immediately matched by a second stream of caffeinated goodness, which was flowing down the front of the carafe from the spout and pouring onto the counter. “Oh fiddlesticks,” I think I said and stopped pouring. I felt betrayed. Had Michael let me down? Of course, he hadn’t. It was just a glitch in the carafe-forming process that was causing the problem.

Through a three-week process of trial, error, and paper towels I was able to achieve, and maintain to this day, a 90 percent success rate for coffee service. We decided to keep it anyway. My wife just pours over the sink.

Le Corbusier and The Last Diplodocus

First Published in "The Home Monthly" August 2004 Issue for the Hersam Acorn Press


Le Corbusier and The Last Diplodocus.

My wife, daughter, and I live in a condominium and we are lucky enough to have two decks. The inside deck is surrounded on three sides by our condo with a seven-foot wall closing off the fourth side. It is nice and private. The second deck is a traditional, hang-over-the-side deck off our living room.

When we moved in over a year ago, we decided we needed to furnish these two outside rooms. After three trips, one to Wal-Mart, one to Home Depot, and one to Linens N Things, the task was accomplished. The inside deck was furnished with a round table with an authentic mosaic decal (which lasted one year) in the center and four chairs. The outside deck gained four Adirondack chairs and two Adirondack ottomans. An ottoman can mean one of two things, either a citizen of the Near East empire that was really big before World War One but really small afterward or the small round stool that my mom had covered in rich maroon vinyl when I was growing up. She also had one called a hassock which was also small and round. I have no idea what the difference between the two is and if anyone knows I’d appreciate you letting me in on it — but I digress. The entire adventure cost around $170 and since we don’t spend that much time outside due to the fear of insect-borne plagues or the risk of skin cancer, I consider it money well spent

As the weather turns warmer, thoughts in this house turn towards our friend Nancy’s pool and the living that goes on in and around that swimmin’ hole. Coincidentally, this month’s issue of two national design magazines featured several pieces of outdoor furniture, which sparked thoughts of a few other outdoor seating options that have crossed my path. These are, one would suppose, pieces you would place by the pool, on the deck (either inside or out), on the patio, take to the beach, or, in the case of one chair recommended by a designer friend of mine, while on safari in Africa. They each elevate the outdoor chair to new heights both in style and comfort. All cost a tad more than the $12.99 each I paid for the deck chairs in the al fresco portion of Chez Ploss.

The first is famed Italian architect/designer Mario Bellini’s MB1, available in the States through Heller. The MB1 echoes Bellini’s Le Bambole chair of 1972 for B&B Italia. The MB1 is as massive in appearance as Le Bambole but with cleaner lines and less of a nod to the overstuffed chair. It is, basically, an outdoor club chair. The sister piece, MB5 (one wonders what happened to MB2, MB3, and MB4), is a pouf that dictionary.com tells me is a “rounded ottoman.” Both are one-piece molded polymer (plastic) and the MB1 has built-in cushions. Heller says that both are suitable for either office, home, indoor or outdoor. They come in two “vibrant” shades of gray specified by Pantone Matching System numbers (a Pantone number is to a graphic designer what Everest Green Metallic is to a Mercedes Benz salesman except it makes more sense). One would imagine that either of the two grays would be on the neutral side of any decorating palette. The MB1’s style is definitely clean and contemporary. Thoroughly Modern Bellini. The colors for all of you designers out there are PMS 412C and 452C. It retails in the $800 range.

Extinct, it would appear, are vast herds of aluminum web chairs that have dominated the American leisure landscape for over 50 years. It would seem that, like the dinosaur, some climactic event has destined them to be a dead-end branch of the Furnituris leisurati family tree. But have they all gone? One can still find the last of the species in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart or the Christmas Tree Shop, clinging to existence like the last diplodocus at the end of the Jurassic. There are also indications that they, like the dinosaurs before them, have simply evolved into something else. In the case of the dinosaur, evidence points to them having evolved into birds. In the case of the aluminum web chair, evidence points to two distinct evolutionary paths. The first is that of the cloth-covered beach chair with its shortened stature, book pocket, and carry strap. Flocks of them can be seen perched on top of the frozen food and dairy sections of any Stop & Shop, like crows on a Nebraska power line. The second and arguably more successful evolution on the social acceptance scale is the metal-framed mesh chair. These can be seen at virtually every pool side, every deck, and patio in Fairfield County and are comfortable and airy (the mesh allows airflow to your caboose).

A more interesting piece is the folding English Mahogany Roorkhee Campaign Chair by FM Allen in New York and introduced to me by client and friend, designer Tyler Tinsworth. FM Allen has an entire line of reproduction English campaign furniture from the unique to the downright silly. The Roorkhee Chair (named in honor of the city where the Indian Army Corps of Engineers was located in British Colonial India) is definitely one of the unique ones. It is a wood, canvas and leather affair that requires the “sittee” to put together the various arms, braces, slings and belts to form a pretensioned masterwork. The Roorkhee, unlike most folding camp furniture, actually adapts well to uneven terrain and becomes more stable the heavier the person sitting in it (one can only ponder the previously unreachable levels of stability achieved with me sitting in it). Equally at home on a screened porch or in your office, this is a chair that is the focus, at least at first, of most of the conversations taking place around it.
When one looks at the complexity of the Roorkhee chair and compares it to say the folding director’s chair, one has to wonder why the English had to make things so darn complicated. At first I wrote it off to the fact that obviously the English campaign furniture was invented first and that the director’s chair came much later, say when the motion picture director was invented by Thomas Edison (this led to his inventing the motion picture as an excuse to get rid of all those people walking around his living room looking at him through frames made with their hands). That theory was dispelled by the fact that the French had “invented” the modern director’s chair in the 1890s as a folding chair for their generals. One can imagine legions of French Generals d’Armée sitting on the back porch of the Maginot Line during the spring of 1940, sipping cognac in director’s chairs with Welcome to France stenciled on the back.

According to Nicholas A. Brawer, author of British Campaign Furniture: Elegance Under Canvas, 1740-1914 (Harry N. Abrams, 2001), “The Roorkhee Chair blended the Elegance of the outgoing Victorian Age camp furniture with the more utilitarian style of the new Edwardian Era camp furniture.” The design allowed them to be folded compactly while retaining the highest level of luxury and style that typified “being British.” The fact that the French had invented the other type probably had nothing to do with it. Whatever the reason, the Roorkhee chair attracts attention like no director’s chair could. It’s very cool. Marcel Breuer thought so (the Roorkhee inspired his famous Wassily chair c1925) as did Le Corbusier (his Basculant chair, 1928, is a reflection of it) and Kaare Klint (as seen in his safari chair of 1933). The Roorkhee retails for $550. Dear Santa...

The silly piece is the Victorian Caned Satin-Birch Travelling Chair (for around $2,500). This folding, legless chair has handles positioned fore and aft so that your bearers can carry you, seated at a delightful angle, through the brush. “Oh look Monty, is that a lion eating the china bearer?” Standard equipment includes “massive iron rings” attached in place of legs “perhaps designed to lash it to a wagon or elephant howdah” (not a pachydermal greeting but the harness that was strapped to it’s back where everything from Victorian Caned Satin-Birch Travelling Chairs to small buildings were fastened). “Genevieve dear, could you pop down to the market for some mustard? You can take the elephant.” This is a beautiful work of art; one could imagine hanging it, at elephant back height, from the ceiling. It is a brilliant conversation piece but silly as a usable chair.

Of all of the choices both retro and contemporary that are available to the consumer in the outdoor seating market today, the one that inspires the warmest warm and fuzzies is the ubiquitous 1950s metal lawn chair. You know the one. They had (and still do) stamped metal seats molded to fit the lower district of the human anatomy and scalloped backs with pipe-like arms that started at the backrest, came forward, then bent downs to form the front (and only) legs, bent to the rear at the ground level, flowing back to a right angle and meeting somewhere south of your posterior.

Although it is difficult to find a definitive history of the metal lawn chair (or motel chair as they were also known due to their popularity in the drive-up lodging industry), they are thought, by some, to have been designed by industrial designer John Gordon Rideout of Cleveland, Ohio. Originals are available on eBay, and there are many companies making reproductions. Older examples tend to run in the $45-$125 range with new ones selling for around $60.

It is the metal lawn chair that occupies my earliest recollections of outdoor furniture. My great-grandfather built a large stone lodge in the mountains of West Virginia during the ’30s. The lodge has a covered flagstone porch overlooking the lake and mountains beyond. Lined up against the house were six of the scalloped-back lawn chairs that my grandparents and great-grandparents would sit in while my mom and her siblings played in the yard. During the ’60s and ’70s, it was Mom’s turn to watch from the aged green metal chairs as my brother, sister and I played with our cousins. As kids, we made a connection with the adults when we sat in those chairs, we could join in their conversations about politics, lumbering, and when we were going to drain the pond again. As I got older, I came to enjoy just sitting on the porch with a good book and a glass of iced tea while the chair gently rocked back and forth. I still do.

My Digital Camera Told Me The Milk Expired

First Published in "The Home Monthly" May 2004 Issue for the Hersam Acorn Press
NOTE: The cartoon is a late addition and did not appear in the paper.

I was watching Home And Garden TV the other night and they had a special presentation of the 2004 International Builders Show, which was held in Orlando Florida this past January. For those of you who are not familiar with this particular event, it features all of the latest appliances, hardware, lighting, tools, etc aimed at the homebuilding market space. This is the place your builder goes so that he can talk you into that new microwave with a built-in toaster (it exists, really).

Now I have to admit, I am a tech freak. I think that things like PDAs, cell phones that can give directions, iPods, new GTOs, and digital cameras are very cool. It's just that sometimes a bit of technology comes down the pike that causes me to step back and scratch my head. Now don't get me wrong, the item in question here has a list of features that seems impressive - Microsoft Windows, 20 GB Hard drive, 15-inch flat-screen monitor with 4096x4096 screen resolution, built-in speakers and microphone, high-speed internet capability, digital still/video camera and an icemaker that makes three different sizes of ice cubes. I am speaking, of course, about the LG Internet Refrigerator (LGIR).

The LGIR is a fridge that has more bells and whistles than a convention of one-man band acts, and one feels compelled to ask… why? At a price that ranges from $7,600 to $8,000 just for the unit itself (and don't forget to have the cable company run cable and install a connection behind the refrigerator space before it arrives and the plumber run the line for water and ice), it's not exactly cheap, and the camera isn't exactly portable (it's not detachable) or high resolution (at less than one megapixel the resolution is lower than my six-year-old Fuji).

It's hard enough getting into the refrigerator now without having the family standing in front of it watching TV or posing for pictures to send to grandmommy and grand daddy's WebTV in South Carolina. There are also, in my mind, two words in the downloadable brochure I find troubling: "touch-screen" and "kitchen". I don't know about you but if I am in the kitchen cooking the last thing I should be doing is touching anything more expensive than a wooden spoon. Don't get me started on the refrigerator's keyboard and mouse.

There are some cool features to the LGIR though; the fact that the LGIR "tracks" the expiration date of the food inside is neat. "Track" is in quotes because it does not actually communicate with the food packaging like the scanner in the self-checkout line in the supermarket. The refrigerator remembers when you put the item inside because you tell it when you are putting the item in. You can view a list to see what you have and how long it's been there although the added functionality of a mall-type map stating "you are here and the cheese that goes bad tomorrow is over there behind the Wasabi mayo", would be helpful.

LG Electronics, which entered the US market with the Internet Refrigerator (say "Internet Refrigerator" whenever you feel blue to lift your spirits) has installed several hundred of them this year and introduced other "hybrids" too. These include the Microwave/Toaster and Microwave/Coffee Maker - ideas not entirely bad. How many of us have a coffee maker and a microwave on the kitchen counter? The concept of saving space by combining devices is smart thinking and the driving force in the company. Now, how many of us have a refrigerator, a freezer, a digital camera, a TV, a radio, and a 356lb PDA in the kitchen? My gut feeling is that in the home of a family that can afford an $8,000 refrigerator, kitchen counter space is not going to be the driving issue.

If you can get beyond the concept of an Internet Refrigerator and look at the idea behind this appliance it sort of makes sense. Now that flat panel TVs seem to be everywhere it follows that you might as well make use of the front of the refrigerator which is viewed by some to be wasted space - this is not true in my house. The door of our refrigerator has enough school papers, old pictures, coupons, shopping lists, newspaper clippings, and magnets festooned to it that the appliance resembles a molting musk ox.

The refrigerator operating system is an embedded version of Microsoft Windows. It follows logically then that the LGIR has a reset button. The button is located on the top front of the 70" tall unit. It should probably be more accessible, say a foot pedal perhaps. There are two USB and two serial ports on the refrigerator as well. It would seem that hooking up to a printer, scanner, or decent digital camera shouldn't be a problem as long as the driver software needed is downloadable and compatible with the refrigerator. If someone hacking your refrigerator is of concern to you - and why wouldn't it be - the LGIR comes standard with virus protection.

Since the fridge runs on Windows and based on my experience with Windows on a daily basis, I would have to assume that the personality of the Internet Refrigerator would be slightly superior and a little condescending. "You seem to be making a casserole, are you sure you want to use mayonnaise? Fat-free yogurt would provide a healthier alternative." What would the Refrigerator Assistant look like? A carrot?

The conspiracy theorist in me wonders what else the fridge will be monitoring in the future. What if I decide, after working on this column for instance, that I really need a diet soda? Is there a possibility of having a Keir Dullea moment? "I am sorry Skip, you have had three diet sodas already and I have determined that is enough for one 24-hour period. Wait, what are you doing? Daisy, daisy….". It doesn't talk yet.

The information from LG asks the question "Who is buying the LG Multi-Media (Internet) Refrigerator?" It goes on to say that the LGIR is a perfect message board for those on tight schedules. The brochure also points out that the LGIR would form the perfect centerpiece for the kitchen nerve center of the home for those families where the kitchen is the nerve center of the home. Those who wish to have a TV and Radio in the kitchen and have not yet heard of the tremendous breakthroughs in Non-refrigerated entertainment appliances will want to have one as well. Finally, the brochure states that the LGIR is a must-have for "people who want to be on the leading edge of technology". That is right on. The kitchen has been neglected, although not totally, in the Internet revolution. Its time has come.

Is the LGIR perfect? No. Is it the answer to a nagging question? Not one I have been asking. Is it cool? Absolutely. Those of us who constantly covet the latest and greatest cell phone, the smallest and most powerful PDA, the biggest laptop, the biggest and flattest TV, and the camera with more megapixels than anyone else on the block will want this and want it badly. I know I do.