Practical and Pretty to Be Presented at IH+HS

By Lorrie Baumann

Expect a wide variety of practical items to augment the working kitchen of the everyday cook at this year’s International Home + Housewares Show. The show will feature the same four expos as it has in the recent past, with Dine + Design moved into the North Hall. Tom Mirabile, the International Housewares Association’s trend expert and the Senior Vice President, Global Trend & Design at Lifetime Brands, will once again offer a keynote speech in which he will explore the latest findings on American consumers, while Leatrice Eiseman, IHA’s color expert and the Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute, will speak about this year’s consumer color preferences. A banquet of industry insights will be spread each day in the Innovation Theater, and the line-up of celebrity chefs scheduled to appear includes Geoffrey Zakarian, Tyler Florence, Stephanie Izard, Todd English and Rick Bayless, among others.

More than 2,100 exhibitors will be in the exhibit hall to show off this year’s innovations for today’s home cooks. Housewares manufacturers are responding to a culture in which consumers have more choices than ever before about how they’ll obtain and prepare their daily food, and home cooks range from those who cook almost every day to those who use their kitchen appliances only rarely. Americans spend about 45 minutes a day shopping for their food, about an hour a day preparing their meals and cleaning up after them, and just over an hour a day eating and drinking, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Americans are increasingly likely to buy their food already prepared and bring it home to eat it or to buy their dinners from a meal kit delivery service that gives them the opportunity to cook their meals without devoting much time or effort to either shopping or ingredient preparation. Despite that, the vast majority of Americans still say that cooking at home is their preferred way to prepare their meals, and more men are in the kitchen than ever before.

Especially for Millennial-generation consumers whose enthusiasm about cooking at home may outrun their skills, Zyliss has spent two years developing its new Control knife set, which is designed to perform well no matter how the cook holds it. A high-quality German steel blade, contoured handle, an accommodating bolster, a handle with antimicrobial protection and dishwasher safety all combine to work well for inexperienced home cooks. “We’re not asking consumers to learn to use this knife. We’re meeting them where they are,” said Associate Marketing Manager Bridget Cundelan. “Whatever way you want to hold it, it fits…. You can use the pinch grip, but you can also hold it the way you do it, and it’s comfortable. You don’t feel like you’re going to cut yourself.” Control is offered in open stock and a range of sets, with 16 pieces in a knife block retailing for $179.99.

The knife block offers sheathing inserts in one size to fit any of the slots and to fit any of the knives. They’re removable to go into the dishwasher, and they feature the same 99.9 percent effective antimicrobial action as the knife handles. A small block with five slots retails for $39.99, which the 17-slot knife block retails for $69.99.

Emile Henry is debuting the La Marmite Stockpot, a new soup pot for cooking and serving that’s made in France from burgundy clay. It’s based on a dutch oven design, but it’s taller and a little sleeker, so it’ll work well with an immersion blender for pureeing soups, and it goes on the stovetop as well as in the oven. The upturned rim is designed to avoid spills during cooking or drips from a ladle, and the snug-fitting lid helps retain heat at the table. It’s dishwasher safe. Capacity is 4.25 quarts, and it’s available in Burgundy and Charcoal. The La Marmite Stockpot will retail for $130, and it’ll be available to ship at the time of the show.

T-fal is coming out with an extra-wide peeler with an extra-sharp micro-etched blade that’s great for peeling large or hard vegetables like a butternut squash or for shaving curls of hard cheese off the block. It will retail for $10.99.

Microplane is introducing several new products at this year’s IH+HS, including the Ultimate Bar Tool, which like one of those all-purpose tools that hangs from a handyman’s belt and does a bit of everything, depending on what he needs to do. It has a peeler, a muddler, a cocktail stirrer, a knife blade, a channel knife for making long twists of citrus zest, a zester and even a scorer to help with the peeling of tough-rinded citrus. With a comfortable soft-grip handle in black with white accents, the Ultimate Bar Tool will be available in March and will retail for about $14.95.

The new 2-in-1 Core & Peel from Microplane features a serrated stainless steel coring blade and two sharpened edges to separate and extract an apple or pear’s core easily. There’s also a straight peeler on the bottom of the handle. The soft-grip handle is bright red with white accents. The 2-in-1 Core & Peel ships in March and will retail for $12.95.

There’s also a 3-in-1 Twist & Zest from Microplane, which eliminates the need for multiple gadgets to squeeze fresh juice, as well as zest, peel and create garnish twists from oranges, lemons, limes and other citrus fruit. A clear protective cap is included for the twist tool for safety when not used and during storage. Twist & Zest will retail for $12.95 and has a green handle with white accents.

Kuhn Rikon has a nifty little Click ‘n Curl Spiralizer that comes as a set of a julienne peeler and a straight-edge peeler and two cones that click around the blade to guide vegetables into the blade. To use it, the vegetable is fitting into the cone, and then the peeler is twisted to make vegetable noodles or ribbons. A large cone can be used for zucchini, potatoes or cucumbers, while the smaller cone is for carrots, parsnips or broccoli stalks. It will be available this summer to retail for $18.

Kuhn Rikon also has a handy Utensil Caddy that holds up to 25 cooking utensils and tools. The caddy spins to make tools easy to reach, it comes apart for easy cleaning, and silicone feet on the base help hold it steady on the counter. It’s shipping in March and will retail for $30.
Dexas is offering 15 skus in The Mix Collection of cutting boards, made of eco-friendly bamboo paired with polyboard inserts in granite and marble finishes that are friendly to blades and food-safe. The boards are designed for both prep work and the beauty of wood for food presentation. They’ll retail for $29.99.

And because people aren’t the only ones walking around in the kitchen, Dexas has come up with the MudBuster™, a gentle paw washer for the family dogs. An array of soft, gentle silicone bristles inside a tumbler gently brushes mud from the dog’s paws into warm water in the tumbler. The device comes in three sizes, it’s easy to use, and it’s already a hit at pet product shows, so it’s worth taking a look at in booth #S138 at IH+HS.

Finally, the e-PEBO siphon coffeemaker from Bodum, which has an electrically powered base that heats water added to the bowl of a carafe. Grounds are added into the bowl of a glass funnel, and as the water is heated, it’s forced as steam up the stem of the funnel to the coffee grounds. Then when the coffee reaches 201 degrees Fahrenheit, a vacuum formed in the pot draws it back down to stay warm until it’s served. The entire cycle takes 12 minutes, and since the coffee is actually brewed with steam rather than boiling water, additional oils are extracted from the beans to make a coffee with a very smooth flavor, and the aromas circulate through the coffee as it brews for an extra dimension of flavor. “It’s a seamless way of making coffee, and it’s very, very convenient,” said Daniel Kvist, who does marketing and sales for Bodum.