Kitchen Clarity Adventures in Kitchen and Bath Design

This week I’m delighted to be one of a lucky group of designers and architects enjoying a three-day, hands-on learning experience at the Monogram Experience Center in Louisville, Kentucky.  There’s no better way to learn about appliances than to actually cook on them, and we’re doing just that under the guidance of chefs Joe Castro and Brian Logsdon in the professional culinary studio at the heart of the 9,000 sq ft complex:

Multiple kitchen set-ups in the culinary studio

The MEC is a feast for all the senses – not just the expected gustatory ones:

Art glass in the MEC lobby

It also houses a full equipped wine-tasting room, and we spent much of our day in the multimedia capable showcase gallery – a luxuriously appointed screening room where multiple secret wall panels open up to reveal the appliances under discussion.

Today we had a speed cooking morning, and prepared our own lunch on induction cooktops (the way of the future folks) and the amazing Advantium speed cooking ovens.  Did you know that over 70% of us don’t start to plan our weekday evening meals until 4 in the afternoon? Advantium technology cooks up to 8 times faster than conventional ovens – making it easier to cook real food at home on even the busiest and least planned days. The results are definitely delicious – a world apart from microwave convection ovens, and practically a universe apart from ordinary microwave cooking.

Our afternoon concentrated on refrigeration products – I can tell you I am very excited about the new 30″ fully integrated refrigerators, to be launched in the 1st quarter of 2011. Just check out the way the drawers line up with cabinetry – and even better, you can switch the bottom drawer from refrigerator to freezer, and back again, as your needs change:

Perfectly integrated and aligned

There’s no question that everybody at GE Monogram is paying the most meticulous attention to detail – and that they are masters of research and statistics. Did you know that experts dispute whether eggs should be kept on their sides, pointy end up, or pointy end down for best preservation? Or that most people keep condiments and salad dressings in the door shelves of the refrigerator? That the average number of salad dressing bottles in the refrigerator is six? And one of them is nearly always ranch?

Related Posts:

• Dispatches from the Monogram Experience Center Part 1.5
• Discovering Zephyr – Next Generation Europa Range Hoods
• Kitchen luxury – if you can afford it
• Outdoor dishwasher from Kalamazoo
• Microwave with plenty of personality