Hi, my name is Lindsay (that’s me grilling the corn) and I’m one of the Thermador appliance designers. Specifically, I design the most amazing dishwashers you’ll ever use. I love to eat, cook, bake and…well, you guessed it…design.

When drawing up appliances, I like to think of what I cook at home and how it can better translate to the kitchen. Here is a sample menu that the design team recently prepared:

Menu:

Rotisserie Game Hens over roasted Rosemary-Thyme
     Turnips + Sweet Potatoes
Grilled Corn brushed with Chipotle Oil
Hollandaise Sauce over Asparagus
Grilled Rib-eye Steaks with a Tomato Jam Compote
Rigatoni with Tomato Sauce and Parmesan
Steamed Braided Loaf of Bread
Salad with a Creamy Peppercorn Ranch Dressing
Pecan + Walnut Sugar Cookies

A good rule of thumb when designing a kitchen appliance is to always do hands-on research: it’s the best way to find what opportunities there are to include or improve upon. This past week the design team flew to Scottsdale, Ariz. (where our showroom is located), for an in-depth cooking fest. The idea was to get the entire home-cooking experience: grocery shopping, unloading the groceries in the refrigerator, prepping the food, cooking the food, and to finally the best part — cleaning the kitchen (which means just throwing every dish directly into the dishwasher!).

We cooked on all of the appliances in the kitchen, including the Steam & Convection Oven (bread); Induction Cooktop with the PowerBoost (blanching the asparagus) and ExtraLow (hollandaise + tomato sauce) features; Pro Harmony Range (corn + ribeyes); and the Convection Oven, using the rotisserie feature (game hens).

My main role in making this exquisite meal was preparing the Hollandaise sauce — my first-ever attempt at this task. To my surprise, it was simple to do. Not only can you whip it up in mere minutes, you also get some mean arm muscles from all of the fast whipping (if you do it by hand). All you need to do is beat four egg yolks with Dijon mustard in a double broiler, and then feverishly whip the yolks while slowly ladling clarified butter in as you go. As you whip you’ll notice it getting thicker. When you’re at the desired consistency, season it with salt and pepper and squeeze half of an orange in. I know, that’s all it takes!

And of course, after everything was prepared, we sat down and ate it all! The food itself was delicious — naturally, my hollandaise probably made the meal — but most of all you could really tell the difference the appliances made in not only the taste of the food, but how easy it was to prepare.

So if you’re ever in the mood for a well-cooked and free gourmet meal like this one, just call our showroom…I’m sure we’ll be going back very soon!