Luxury Kitchen Equipment

[Jade]

One of my biggest guilty pleasures is browsing and sometimes shopping for luxury kitchen equipment. I'm not talking about necessary ones, but instead ones that I would consider to be frivolous and almost unnecessary. Right now, I'm looking at coffee machines that use capsules - Bosch Tassimo, in particular.

I know this might not seem like a practical enough tool to some to maybe count it in as a necessity, but I'm not even that much of a coffee drinker, and I mainly just want to have it at home because it looks fun to use. For those who are unfamiliar, it's basically a coffee machine that utilizes capsules filled with concentrate so you can get a lot of flavored coffee mixes at home as you would in a coffee shop, and the best thing about it is that both hot or cold types of coffee drinks can be produced using this.

Anyway, do you guys have any luxury kitchen equipment that you feel similarly towards?

 

[crimsonghost747]

Not at all. I actually have zero luxury cooking items at home, and probably won't get one either. I was thinking of getting one of those machines to make grilled sandwiches... then I figured that I can just as well throw the sandwiches into the oven and the results are exactly the same. Might take a few minutes longer, that's the only downside.

 

[clairebeautiful]

I am not a fan of the single cup coffee machines (Keurig, Starbucks Verisimo, Nescafe, or Nespresso). I find them to be wholly un-economical and terrible for the environment. I also recently read about the danger of the K-cups themselves, due to heating the plastic as the coffee comes out. Even though they are BPA-free, it sort of goes with the whole argument about the connection between Estrogen and plastic in the environment (http://themommyilluminati.wordpress...abolism-reproductive-health-and-cause-cancer/).

That said, I have a Delonghi espresso machine. It was originally $1200, but I found it on clearance at Starbucks before Christmas one year for $250. It is one of my most luxurious kitchen items. The next thing would probably be the Ninja blender. It's not the price of a Vitamix, but it is about as good. I would also like to upgrade my pots and pans to something more expensive, and I want an entire set of non-stick Pyrex baking dishes.

I'm totally okay with eating off of cheap dinnerware, but I do love a few expensive kitchen toys.

 

[OhioTom76]

We had one of the Keurig coffee makers at work for a while, and I have to admit - although I initially scoffed at the idea of such a machine, I did get kind of hooked on them for a while. Someone mentioned to me that they put some sort of gas in those pods to keep the ground coffee fresh. Whatever they do the coffee definitely did taste very fresh. They are a huge waste though in terms of plastic. Plus when you do the math, you are paying nearly 50 dollars per pound for the coffee. They make refillable pods for them, but if you're going to go through the trouble of refilling and cleaning them, what's the point?

 

[QuadCookies]

I'm planning on getting a verismo for my xmas this year, hopefully save some cash instead of going to starbucks all the time.

 

[sixxup]

When buying these kitchen appliances I do not consider how expensive they are but my pocket dictates. I sometimes do not remember to compare different brand names. As long as it works correctly, there will be no excuse why I should not buy it.

 

[Corzhens]

There are so many kitchen gadgets now that I see in home tv shopping channel. But I really find them preposterous or not that useful at all. Even the coffee brewer, it is not a necessity. In our kitchen, the most we need is the cooking range, the oven, the microwave and oven toaster. We all have that now so I'd say our kitchen is complete. However, due to the extreme heat in the kitchen, I am wishing to have a big exhaust system so it will be a bit cooler when we use the oven or the griller.