EW's own Alex Mayhew-Smith nominates Nigella Lawson’s Living Kitchen Citrus Juicer as a strong made by monkeys contender, mainly because designers elected to trade off any notion of functionality for a really cool-looking design.
"We were given one as a present. The form is sort of new and interesting but there are many reasons this kitchen device annoys me.
First, if you squeeze your lemon, the holes through which your lemon juice is meant to flow are too high from the base of the dish, which means a certain volume of juice has to build up before it begins to pass through to the collection compartment. Or you could tip it up to encourage it to pass through the holes, which makes it – to my mind - a labour creating device.
Second, the holes are small and the squeezed lemony pips shortly clog up the holes, long before you are able to see your lemon juice collected in the pouring compartment.
Third, just try washing this up without a dishwasher! Those dry lemony bits nicely sealing your lemon juice holes are impossible to get at with a scrubbing brush because of – on the one side - the lemon squeezing bit is in the way of the back of the scrubbing brush and – on the other side – the dish is shaped in such a way that again, the brush cannot be used."
Apparently, other people hated it, like this review on Amazon that noted it "looks nice, but doesn't work!"
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Comments (2)
Good one - reminded me of the Philippe Starck "Spider", which has been described as "the most controversial juicer" (!) on the web. Looks very good - high in design value, but - at least according to an old flatmate - low in practical value.
You can see what it looks like here
AW
Posted by Alun Williams | October 15, 2007 10:36 AM
Best juicer - the OrangeX ones (get a Medium and / or a Large). Electric ones are too much of a pain to clean. Well-built with a long handle for lots of leverage. Easy to clean up.
Another cool kitchen thing that most people haven't tried - Kyocera ceramic knives. Be *sure* to RTFM, otherwise you'll ruin them. But when used as directed they are absolutely amazing at holding an edge - orders of magnitude better than the best metal knives. Only major downside - you have to ship them back to Kyocera for sharpening (but only every few years).
Posted by ErikTheRed | October 17, 2007 6:31 AM