Styles: A Guide to Gadgets

THE HOTTEST THING in the kitchen isn't always the food. Sometimes you're more likely to salivate over the doodads that helped you prepare the meal — especially when they're shiny.

"As a guy, I'm obsessed with gadgets, period. If something can make cooking or eating fun, I want it," says Mark Istook, at right,, co-host of Food Network's "Gotta Get It," a program dedicated to the latest in kitchen gizmos, from pretzel baking pans to automatic potato peelers. The demand for his show, he says, demonstrates how thingamabobs have become an unstoppable force, taking over entire stores (Williams Sonoma, Sur La Table) and hours of late-night television. What was once just for pros has gone mass market, and what seemed like dreams are now in one's silverware drawer.

"You can never have the definitive anything," says Sunny Anderson, Istook's co-host, at right, whose kitchen includes a "gadget graveyard" for tools that proved unworthy, yet too promising to chuck. She keeps testing the latest stuff in hopes of finding miracle workers, like her beloved Garlic Twist, a small plastic container with shredding teeth she calls into duty every day.

Even if the trick is possible without a steel or silicone goody, it's nice to have the option to be lazy. Scott Eichinger, a 31-year-old who blogs at sseichinger.blogspot.com, always masters techniques on his own first to prove that he can do it. Then he buys the gadget. "They're good for helping people so they can cook and not get stressed out," he explains.

And gadgets are great for kids, as Pam Abrams discovered when she swooned over an apple peeler and corer decades ago. The former editor of Child Magazine just poured her passion into "Gadgetology" ($15, Harvard Common Press), a guide to all the good times you can have cooking — or just playing — with your kids and your kitchen stash. Using marinade injectors to fill strawberries with grape juice and turning pasta spoons into puppets might not be what the products are made for, but they get little ones excited about learning to cook. "Anything with a crank or button and kids are drawn to it," she says.

Her quest for alternate uses for gadgets comes in handy when she's flying solo, too. Her potato masher doubles as a guacamole maker; an apple corer she picked up by mistake carves perfect cucumber and cheese sticks, and she's recently found a savory side to her pastry bags. "I used one to make stuffed shells the other day and it shot the ricotta right into the pasta," she says. "It was a perfect use for it."

The downside of the gadget boom is finding the right place (or any place) to store all these acquisitions. Anderson goes the vertical route: "I have my waffle maker on top of my sandwich maker on top of my microwave." Eichinger is stricter about reducing his collection to products he knows he'll use, which doesn't bode well for a recent gift of a spatula meant especially for peanut butter and jelly.

Design is as much a factor as performance in Abrams' household, because she likes to put her gadgets on display. Anything that can stand hangs out in canisters on the counter so she can admire her collection. "My kitchen is a prettier place because of the gadgets," she says. And it's a more productive one, too.

» CHEFS' LITTLE HELPERS
Even chefs aren't immune to the lure of a new toy. Gillian Clark, who helms Colorado Kitchen (5515 Colorado Ave. NW; 202-545-8280), cycles through her obsessions quickly — a pizzelle iron, a funnel-cake funnel and cookie cutters. "I go through phases and I'll just use something for a month," she admits. But there's one product with staying power: the food mill. "I'll make gazpacho; I'll grind up parsnips. It's the perfect all-around thing, especially if you're serious about your mashed potatoes," she says.

If you're also serious about wanting bubbles of raspberry liqueur to float in a glass of champagne, as are Peter Smith and Adam Bernbach, the chef and bar manager, respectively, of PS7's (777 I St. NW; 202-742-8550, ps7restaurant.com), you find a tool to make it happen. In this case, the cocktail concept required a gadget connecting 96 pipettes to a syringe and uses sodium alginate and calcium chloride.

Typical whisks don't cut it for Richard Sandoval of Zengo (781 7th St. NW; 202-393-2929; modernmexican.com), who prefers a wooden Mexican tool for warm drinks called a molinillo. Apparently, the whirlpool effect makes the froth last longer than any of these new-fangled metal contraptions. Sometimes the old stuff doesn't need to be improved.

Photo courtesy Food Network