I’ve been conversing with Anthony Rocco, who runs a kitchen appliance blog called Appliance Buyer's Guide. He contacted me to thank me for the post on old shallow cabinets and protruding dishwashers, as he gets that question in his business all the time.
Like me, he grew up in this business. His family also own and run The Kitchenworks, a kitchen design firm in South Florida for over 22 yrs, and his mother is a CMKBD and CID as well. Our conversation led to some discussion about the “above and beyond” mentality of family businesses that the average consumer rarely sees – the weekends painting the showroom, or late nights designing a truck logo, or extra meetings to make our service better long after everyone else has gone home. (Okay, we never discussed those actual points, but we didn't need to; we already know. Say another person, "We have a family business" and there is a whole world in that one sentence.)
Anyway, that doesn’t mean that we don’t occasionally have fun with it. I asked Anthony if I could show you his gentle tongue-in-cheek post on the 1st Annual “Most Ridiculous Appliance” Awards for this holiday season and he graciously allowed me to post this for you.
I thought it might be nice to get you started with the 3rd place winner and send you over to his blog to read the rest. With further ado:
The 1st Annual “Most Ridiculous Appliance” Awards
This is meant to be a fun and entertaining post. We aren’t reviewing these appliances as good or bad based our own personal use and testing. If you’ve purchased one of these appliances, please do not take offense. We all make mistakes. In fact, your appliance is now “award-winning”.
3rd Place: Baumatic Ombra Wall Dishwasher – OMBRA4SS
In the slightly off-kilter world of Baumatic, this unit goes for the gold. When is the last time you thought to yourself, “if only the dishwasher was where my oven is…”. For those of you who have these type of thoughts frequently, Baumatic has created a niche product just for you. The Baumatic Wall Dishwasher mounts flush with no handles or knobs. You would think it must open automatically, but this would be too easy. Instead the front glass panel, (the part that makes it look like an oven) tilts out, giving you a makeshift handle to slide the unit open. This is how things are done in the “green” future, so get used to it.
It comes with 6 place settings, 5 wash modes, with a hidden heating element. It also employs residual drying, another green feature you better get used to, which is a fancy way of saying it is without a fan. So, will this British feat of engineering dry your dishes?
I don’t know. But at least no one will be able to find your dishwasher. (….Head to Anthony's blog to find out the 2nd and 1st place winners.)
I never thought of this looking like an oven, but I can see it. I'd be trying to roast a chicken in there. (I suppose I could boil - but getting the broth out would be horrible.) I'd also be disappointed that after all that contemporary sleekness, there was no automatic open - tilting the face seems like I'd be cleaning that mirrored and stainless face a lot during loading.
What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Grinned at least once at Anthony's interpretation?


