5. Meat pounder Though pounding out meat can be a great way to relieve pent-up aggression, it can also be a chore. Enter the Meat Pounder 3000, a sort of robotic arm with various settings that can pound your meat to the desired thickness without all the wax paper and tenderizer. It could clamp on to the edge of a counter and be left alone for however long it takes to get the meat just right. Alternatively, it could be used to crush graham crackers for cheesecake crust.
4. Pistachio shell splitter Generally, breaking open pistachio shells isn't that difficult. But every now and then, one escapes the packaging plant still mostly sealed together, a tiny sliver of green nut barely peeking through as if mocking a hungry snacker. I'm most likely to stick the darn thing between my teeth and bite down, but that's both messy and bad for the chompers. Sure, a regular old nutcracker would do, but why settle for that when you could have a tool specifically for pistachios?
3. Silent blender My father has supersonic hearing. No joke. He wears ear muffs when he vacuums or blends or even goes to the movies. I'm not that sensitive, but it is rather frustrating to have to halt a conversation while you blend a frappuccino or grind coffee. These days, manufacturers are able to make cars that are nearly silent, and their engines are far larger than those in a tiny blender. Make it happen, GE.
2. Instant defroster Recently, I was talking to a chef about an event for which he'd be cooking a large amount of meat, and he was bemoaning the fact that it would take about four hours for the carcass to defrost in his commercial refrigerator. Only he didn't have four days. He had two. If you don't defrost meat the proper way, it can grow bacteria and become dangerously inedible. Unfortunately, that takes time and careful monitoring. Wouldn't it be easier to put whatever meat you need defrosted into some sort of holding container, tweak a few settings and give it an hour or so to reach the desired temperature without overheating any one part? Yes. Yes, it would.
1. Freezer light Why the hell doesn't the freezer have a light in it? Why? Why? Yes, some freezers have lights in them, but the vast majority do not. And I don't get it. I've heard various arguments about the frost that would form on a potential light and how the heat from the light would warm the freezer too much and a whole host of other arguments that I just don't buy. We can send people to the moon. We can transplant beating hearts from one person to another. We can fly across the Atlantic Ocean in three hours. Surely the technology exists to put a functioning light in a freezer. I don't understand why this isn't already common practice. There's just no way I'm the only person who doesn't want to turn on an overhead light and alert my significant other to the fact that I'm getting ice cream at 2 a.m. There's just no way.
