misosouper, a shopping blog

Love this!

I was searching for a kitchen timer as a gift for my mom. Both she and I are huge Alessi fans and I wanted to contribute to her collection. She loves the “Salif” Philippe Stark designed juicer I gave her a years ago. You know the one, it looks like a long legged aluminum spider from outer space. It actually does a fine job of juicing and makes a nice job of adding a touch of whimsy to your counter top. I ended up buying the Michael Graves timer, but wish I would have went with the Josephine Banana design instead.

The Alessi Josephine Banana Kitchen Timer is an adorable little cheeky monkey from the OrienTales collection. OrienTales is an ongoing collaboration between designer Stefano Giovannoni and the National Palace Museum in Taiwan. The project brings the charm and wit of 18th century trinkets into products that are functional and contemporary. The kitchen timer features a mechanical timer and is made from hand decorated thermoplastic resin.

In recent memory, no other product has revolutionized my life like the Itzbeen Baby Care Timer.

Since baby P has come home, we’ve been sleeping in separate beds:  Mr. Misosouper across the house (in walkie talkie distance, of course), and me in the guest room, on newborn duty.  He gets to rest at night and I get to rest during the day, a setup I highly recommend.

So in the wee hours, if I haven’t blearily rolled over to feed/change/check on baby in the past 3 hours, the Itzbeen Baby Care Timer sounds a gentle alarm to wake me up.  Press the buttons to reset, and repeat, until morning.  (There’s a bonus button, which I used the first couple of nights home to remind me to take my pain meds.  As if I would have forgotten.)

The Itzbeen Baby Care Timer even comes with a nightlight, which I have used for several diaper changes when I’m too lazy to turn on the lamp.

Yes, I know reviews of this gadget have already been posted all over the internet.

But add my exhausted, grateful voice to the chorus.

I learned how to prepare a large dinner party from my friend Erik, whose painstaking schedule of food going in and food coming out was always scrawled on a Post-It stuck to the stove. For Erik, and for Thanksgiving, the DoneRight timer is shaped like a tiny stove marked with five clocks that correspond to your burners and oven.

Which virtually guarantees your food (and your Post-It) won’t go down in flames.