When I was growing up, time in the kitchen was hands-on work with a chopping board, a heavy oven, mixing bowls, a large refrigerator and the the heat and wonderful aroma of food wafting through the house for an hour or more before something edible appeared on the table. Have you recently been thinking about doing some kitchen remodeling and been on the market for new kitchen appliances? It feels something like a walk through what you would imagine NASA’s computer labs to be like – only prettier, and more advanced. There is no “hands on” anymore – try “pinkies on” instead. This must have been in the making for about 30 years now. Remember how back then, seeing a microwave oven with a button just for the popcorn seemed like a wickedly lazy and still wonderfully tempting way to live? Don’t be surprised today to find buttons on them just dedicated to far more complex stuff – pizza, chicken nugget or even breads and cakes. Will we one day expect to see a button on the front of the microwave that says “filet mignon”?

When it comes to kitchen remodeling, let’s marvel at some of the real advances that are possible in the new era of the super advanced kitchen. Consider an appliance that can make you breakfast exactly as you would see on the picture on a diner menu – perfectly and evenly browned crispy toast, and a great poached egg next to it. That is now possible on a single new device now – a new breakfast machine by West Bend. Or a bread baker, that’ll also double as a cake maker – it’s all about two unlikely possibilities in one now with the current generation of new kitchen appliances. But let’s not forget the one-touch operation that is all important to today’s generation of cooks. The old kitchen workhorse, the oven toaster grill hasn’t been spared the hand of space age technology either. They now come with a one-touch cookie mode. You just buy your tube of cookie dough at the supermarket, slice them up, and voila!