Thursday, February 2, 2012

Just Because*

How Did Stainless Steel Appliances
Get So Popular?

FEB 1 2012, 3:32 PM ET 147
Because I am true to my demographic, I watch a lot of HGTV.  This is maybe a little weird, because I hate virtually everything that the decorators do on HGTV.  If these shows are to be believed, our era will be defined by a style I have dubbed Contemporary Bland + Orange Pillows.

*Because we've suffered & now it's your turn, we suppose.

9 comments:

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

Stainless steel is a pain to clean (I hear, because I've never had a nice kitchen, ever.) But it always looks great. It's really as simple as that. And stainless steel and commercial grade shit are two completely different issues. People buy stainless steel because I said it looks nice. People buy commercial grade because they are serious cooks (like me) or want people to think they are.

I'd punch my own grandfather in the junk to get stainless and commercial grade stuff...but I dont' think it's gonna happen anytime soon.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

*Ponders what HGTV is.*

High Generation?
~

Dr.KennethNoisewater said...

HOme and Garden Television, thudner.

M. Bouffant said...

Serious Editor:

Holy Ghost Tee Vee!

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

I think my kitchen sink is stainless steel, but I can't be arsed checking it out. For such a kitchen geek, she sure comes across as one shitty, shitty cook (and an even shittier writer).

M. Bouffant said...

Polishing Editor:

If it's a steel sink, we'd guess it's stainless. Pretty sure ours is.

Kitchen geek & cook not necessarily mutually inclusive.

BadTux said...

We had stainless steel counter tops and appliances at Really Crappy Pizza, the place I worked for during college, for two reasons: 1) We sprayed down the entire kitchen with a bleach solution multiple times per day to sanitize it as per Department of Health regulations, and stainless won't discolor or otherwise be harmed by bleach, and 2) it was cheaper than other bleach-resistant materials other than plastic laminate, and laminate wasn't durable enough for our purposes (I mean, we're slamming pizza trays around, dropping hot pizzas onto counters, using knives on counters, the works, we were a buncha college kids, for cryin' out loud, i.e., *idiots*!).

So how "cheapest bleach-resistant durable material" became a status symbol baffles me, since I used all that stuff in its natural environment -- a bleach-filled kitchen full of idiot college kids ;). And, uhm, my microwave is stainless. But that's because I bought it at Costco for the warranty (Costco extends the warranty of anything you buy there) and Costco apparently only stocks stainless, which does *not* go with the rest of my late 1970's-vintage kitchen (sigh!).

- Badtux the Cooking Penguin

M. Bouffant said...

Pie Ed. Asks:

There's an R.C Pizza in every town, isn't there?

BadTux said...

I believe that the proximity of large numbers of college kids is necessary for R.C. Pizza to thrive however, because college kids are notorious for their ability to inhale large quantities of greasy starchy tasteless "meats" and "cheeses" with "sauce" at the same time as they imbibe large quantities of canned "beer". Our other major market was white bread suburbanites from the Midwest, the sort who viewed steak and potatoes as haute cuisine and our greasy R.C. Pizza as exotic and tasty (well, I suppose if you've been eating starchy potatoes and leathery slabs of red meat for all your life it *is* tasty, in a greasy sort of way). I am not certain, however, that we would have been nearly as successful as we were if we'd not been in a college town...

Ah, reminiscing. To be a hatchling again, except knowing what I know now about how the world works...

- Badtux the Elderly Penguin