July 20th, 2012
In a bid to cut household costs, a New Zealand columnist has recently made the switch from cups at the coffee-shop to brewing at home. Charged by caffeine, he had an epiphany: coffee at home can solve his nation's welfare problem. In the hilariously satirical column Bill Ralston describes how and why his wife decided their very frequent trips to the coffee shop down the road must come ... Read more
July 20th, 2012
All this talk about today's throwaway culture has inspired a French art student to design small appliances fashioned from cork. Gaspard Tine-Beres, a student at the Royal College of Art in London, is looking into a business model where a range of small appliances can be made from cork, recycled borosilicate glass and recycled electrical components. For the some of the same reasons cork has been used for ... Read more
July 19th, 2012
In a threatening state of affairs the boarders between nations spill over each other in my spice and hearb tin container. Tumeric spoils the oregano, Chinese five spice gets mixed with Moroccan lamb and beef rendang becomes massaman beef. It's all become quite a confusing mess. This is due to the haphazard state of my kitchen cupboards. The clutter makes it impossible to fit the tin in ... Read more
July 19th, 2012
A side by side fridge, a top mount, and two new top loader washing machines will enter LG's home appliance arsenal this week in Australia. Side by side refrigerators are a popular style when it comes to fridges in Australian kitchens and LG has ensured that alongside fashion there is function. An irksome issue with water and ice dispensing fridges is the plumbing. The new LG GC-L247ENSL is non-plummed. This makes ... Read more
July 19th, 2012
Stumbling across a Warhol-inspired Campbell's Soup Can rangehood has changed the way I look at my kitchen. What I once thought of as elegant, clean, streamlined and simple has become conventional, boring, plain and pitiful. A rangehood iteration of the American artist's iconic subject from the 1960s has been fashioned in a kitchen metalworks shop in the US southern state of Georgia. While it is a one-off piece, ... Read more
July 18th, 2012
Self-cleaning clothes will give us another reason to smile when the sun is out. In the future, a sunny day might be all we need to clean our clothes, according to a study by Chinese scientists. Mingce Long and Deyong Wu have worked to produce a fabric with a coating of nanoparticles that kill bacteria and break down dirt, in other words, they clean. It works when exposed to sunlight, ... Read more
July 18th, 2012
On the road and busting for a brew? Fiat's got you covered. The Italian car maker is giving punters worldwide another reason to buzz around in the 500L, a built-in Lavazza-branded coffee machine nestled next to the gear stick for coffee on the go. (And you thought texting while driving was bad...) The Lavazza ‘Coffee Experience’ kit includes cups, a spoon holder and a sugar dispenser. It sits between ... Read more
July 12th, 2012
A 20,000-year-old pottery fragment from what archaeologists think was a cauldron or wok-like pot has been unearthed in Southern China. Found in Xianrendong Cave, Jiangxi Province, archeologists believe it was a large bowl used to cook food, or possibly to brew booze. The discovery has been published in the last June edition of the journal Science. Archeologists estimate the pot was 20 centimetres high and 15-25 centimetres in diameter. It has been confirmed as the ... Read more
July 12th, 2012
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has received 250 complaints from consumers who think their energy retailers may be taking the mickey. This is due to the double digit percentage price hikes in electricity bills across Australia since the newly implemented Carbon Tax. In total, the ACCC has received 630 Carbon Tax-related complaints; there were over 8350 general complaints in that period, relatively few, said Rod Sims, ACCC ... Read more
July 12th, 2012
Big W has recalled the Abode Stainless Steel Deep Fryer for fear of its handles falling off when lifting oil. It is the fourth recall in the last year for three Adobe products, Big W's home brand. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's recall website warns that the side handles may detach when lifting the deep fryer, "possibly causing serious burn injuries of hot oil splashes on the user or ... Read more
July 11th, 2012
This story comes on the back of a blog where we looked at some of the more marvelous and unknown qualities of vegetables. Did you know, for example, celery can make woman horny and in England, large patches of thyme were planted for fairies to play in? So what other interesting facts lurk in the kitchen? If you fancy the idea of baffling somebody with your peculiar knowledge of foodstuffs, here's a list ... Read more
July 11th, 2012
An unlicensed kitchen installer has been ordered to pay fines and costs by Parramatta Local Court for demanding and receiving more than the maximum deposit allowed for residential work. Hong Cheng Luo, a Canterbury man, was also found guilty of unlicensed contracting and unlicensed kitchen installation work. He has been ordered to pay $4,486. Fair Trading was tipped off by a compliant from a consumer in Bexley for unsatisfactory kitchen work. An ... Read more
July 10th, 2012
Screen star and working mum Georgie Parker will be pushing vacuums in pictures for LG as the company's new brand ambassador across the home appliance category in Australia. Parker, who has played Ruth 'Roo' Stewart on Home and Away since 2010, has been picked by LG for her promotion of style and family values. The 47-year-old is also a representative of the National Scoliosis Foundation and the Steve Waugh Foundation. "I'm ... Read more
July 10th, 2012
It would take a remarkable appliance for us to take readers away from the awesome range of goods at AppliancesOnline.com.au but we couldn't go past this kitchen gadget: a pizza cone. As in, pizza, in a cone. So we direct you to Amazon where the new Pizzacraft Grilled Pizza Cones have been recently released. Unfortunately, the online retailer has already run out of stock. We can only speculate ... Read more
July 10th, 2012
Fisher & Paykel have voluntarily recalled two DishDrawer models after it was revealed there is a small chance of mild electric shock received through contacting the water remaining in the machine after a cycle. The hazard may be created by a small piece of hardware that is not part of the machine, such as a piece of glass, which gets lodged in the pump rotor causing a ... Read more