Year in, year out, the catalogs come. The maniacally cheerful marketeers at Williams-Sonoma (W-S), Sur Le Table (SLT), Chef's Catalog and others do their best to get us to run up our credit card balances for frivolous and often non-functional kitchen gadgets. Or, as Becky once summed it up:
"Useless kitchen gadget 101. We don't know why you'd buy this, but we
think enough suckers will find the picture irresistable that we're
pricing it at at easy $200.00. Just for you."
Read on for a few of The Catalog People's excesses this holiday season.
(Readers of cooksillustrated.com bulletin boards will find this a re-run. However, it'll be new to a few of you.)
Sur Le Table 2007 Christmas Catalog
It's Christmastime (at least, in the minds of retailers)! And that
means another themed catalog from Surly Tab! As Surly Tab has drifted
further and further away from being a hard-core-cook supplier into an
direct W-S competitor, their catalogs have become more fun. Which is
good since W-S catalogs have become boring. So, without further ado,
the Best of the Holiday Surly Tab Calatog:
Frosty the Spatula: long have we toiled without the appropriate spatula for making snowmen! Now the wait is over! ... what do you mean, you don't use a spatula to make snowmen?
Most Dangerous Product Award:
Don't these blown glass strawberry ornaments look delicious? In the
printed catalog, they show them decorating a table, which seems like a
great way to send your relatives to the hospital. Part of a line of two
dozen different food-themed ornaments.
Door-Knocker Soup: ST has one-upped W-S by making an herb wreath which is actually edible. What's next, cold cuts? (Note: taking me up on the challenge, Darcie actually made a cold cut wreath.)
Tackiest Gift Possibility Award: ST's Ceramic Snowman Collection opens whole vistas of forcible re-gifting.
Dishwashing with Hooves: Dasher & Prancer aren't doing dishes in my kitchen! They can't even hold the stupid towel, let alone the big platters!
Drink Quickly, Then Vomit. There's probably a more disgusting drink out there than a "Creme Brulee Chocotini", but ... oh, wait, there it is ...
Some Things Actually Don't Go With Chocolate Or Bacon: chocolate mint truffle tea. Mighty leaf once again proving to us just how much they hate tea.
Wrong Half
Shouldn't "Naughty" be on the bottom half of the glass, after you've
drunk half the booze? Besides, isn't the bottom half always the naughty
bits?
What Else Would You Use?
ST now offers 7 decanters, which it emphasises are "mouth-blown". How
else can you blow? Never mind, I don't really want an answer to that.
Most Awkward Tool Award
(2-way tie): a switchblade peeler with a handle the diameter of a
baseball bat. An avocado scoop shaped like a boomerang. Which is more
likely to result in insult, injury, or both? You decide.
How Do I Use These Together, Again?
SLT is doing celebrity gift sets, which in general seem like a good
concept. But some of the choices of tools seem kind of odd. Morimoto's
set includes a wok with a stopwatch but no wok utensils, and the Emeril
set is the best, with 4 large knives and a 1-quart pot. Huh?
Knives,
Knives, Knives, Yeah! (printed catalog only) this catalog has a full
2-page spread of block sets. It's really kind of intimidating. I
thought people were superstitious about knives as gifts?
Sickeningly Sweet Award:
"French" sugar (since when does sugarcane grow in France?), shaped in
little hearts that cling to the edge of your teacup. How ... precious.
Shouldn't this wait for Valentine's Day?
Williams-Sonoma 2007 Christmas Catalog
Surprisingly
thin this year (probably because we've not bought anything in ages),
the W-S catalog did have a few gems. Particularly:
Overly-Endowed Gingerbread Men:
Should we really be sharing gingerbread men like this with our
children? Don't they belong on Castro Street or something? (click
"larger view" to get the effect)
High-Water Mark for a Delivery Item:
Not only can you put $8000 on your credit card straight out of the
holiday catalog, you can also pay $1300 for delivery! You'd think for
$9300 they could gift-wrap it, but no.
It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Traffic!
Nordicware, in their endless quest to create a cake pan from every
object in the universe, brings us a shape intimately associated with
Christmas in the North ... the tow truck.
Re-Gifting Award:
not satisfied with adorning otherwise functional spatulas with
irrelevant designs, W-S has proceeded to making cute silicon cutouts,
ensuring that each spatula is the gift which keeps on being given. For
extra amusement, they advertise these spatulas as being for children, a
group well-known for its dexterity and patience.
