Feeling Domestic

I'm housesitting for my aunt and uncle while they're away in New York. Aside from taking care of their cat, Eddie, I've mainly been feeling rather domestic. My aunt bought a fresh pineapple because I mentioned that I love pineapple. Generally, I stay away from buying whole pineapples because they're a bitch to cut. I know, it's much more expensive to buy the sliced pineapple at the grocery store, but I'm a sucker for easy.

Leave it up to my aunt, who's originally from Austria, to ride to the rescue. Europeans seem to have the coolest gadgets... well, almost as cool as the Japanese, but the Europeans are a close second. Anyway, she left me a pineapple slicer, that works kind of like a corkscrew. You slice the top off, corkscrew your way through the pineapple and pull out the fresh, tasty fruit. It's one of those things where it was so ridiculously easy that I almost looked around for the TV cameras. "Oh, Mr. Popeil, I simply MUST have one!" (For the record, the pineapple slicer isn't sold by RonCo. I have to say, I really do one a pineapple slicer of my own.

As someone who grew up in the television age, I know I can be pretty cynical when it comes to kitchen gadgetry. I know my parents had a Chop-o-matic (or something similar) at one point... and the thing worked but it ended up as yet another piece of junk I'm sure we either threw out or sold at a garage sale. (Can you believe they still sell the Chop-o-matic?) And don't even get me started on the George Foreman grill... or should I say, "Lean, Mean, Fat Grilling Machine?"

As cheezy as all of those kitchen gadgets can be, along with the infomercials they spawned, it really is kind of impressive to realize that how the infomercial revolutionized TV and sales. On one hand, you want to strangle the guy for breeding the whole "As Seen on TV" sales phenomenon, and by extension QVC and the like, but how often does one person really breed a whole industry?

Here's a little bit of TV nostalgia for you... and Ron Popeil was kinda hot back in the day.