Some ruminations on technology and advertising.
Yeah, I’m getting caught up on my Lileks — had a busy week.
2 thoughts on “The Modern Kitchen”
Comments are closed.
Some ruminations on technology and advertising.
Yeah, I’m getting caught up on my Lileks — had a busy week.
Comments are closed.
Remember when there was a reality-show fad for some manner of retro living? PBS showed some kind of reenactment of living in London during the Blitz — not civilians being torn limb-from-limb when the bombs exploded, but the kewl stuff of air-raid sirens and crowding the family into a backyard shelter.
They even took Reality to the point of restricting the family to wartime food rations (much of Englands food came across that Atlantic and there were the German U-boats), which was regarded as none-too-cool when the kids started mewling about their hunger.
Actually, I had “issues” with that. My parents as civilian teens had front-row seats on war-induced food scarcity and why one would want to impose such conditions on children as part of a TV reality program, I guess you can’t call that a war crime, can we call it a “media crime”?
And wasn’t one of these reality programs a “Frontier House” where some city slickers went hungry because they didn’t know how to go out “a shootin’ for some food”? My wife had recent generations of ancestors homesteading, and people died under such conditions — do we want that on Reality TV?
We are living in the 21st Century, but we are not living the easy life of the automated kitchen in the Jetsons with the house keeping robot. What with energy standards and phosphate taken out of the detergent and appliances being made in China, we are losing ground. A dishwasher has a 3-hour cycle time to not wash the dishes, and a clothes washer doesn’t seem to do better. And our current president promised “skyrocketing” electric rates, and people tell us we will run out of oil before we emit enough CO2 to burn us all up.
What I have in mind is a reality show, set in Lileks 1960’s called (drum roll please), “20th Century House.” Those of us huddled in our late 21st century sod and straw huts with dim battery-powered LED lamps and a hand-cranked TV will oooh and ahhh, “They had dishwashers! And thermostatically controlled heat! And automobiles, which they drove on ‘freeways’ at speeds in excess of 70 MPH!”
Well today you *can* get the pull out drawer refrigerator. When I redid my kitchen 2 years ago I looked about for nifty ideas and that was available. Problem is you have to sacrifice cupboard storage in that space – not always practical.
Closed circuit tv is possible today if you have more than one computer in the house (don’t tell anyone but I have 5). No oven that I know of can keep the roast warm yet juicy for hours, though I know of homes today that have warming lights now. Big kitchens, those homes have.
Never had that “whiter-white” moment with my daughter. Must have something to do with throwing lights and darks together with warm water 😉