Kitschy appliances were all the rage in the 60s and 70s. And my mom had her fair share of them. Sure, she used her trusty electric skillet most often. She'd make her own spaghetti sauce and would brown a pound or so of ground meat in her electric skillet before adding it to the sauce. She used her electric skillet to make hamburgers, fry chicken and, at Passover, she'd use it to make matzo brie (fried matzo), one of the few things I like about the springtime Jewish holiday. The electric skillet was always out, always on display on the counter of our avocado-colored kitchen, because it saw so much regular cooking action.
My mom had a pressure cooker, too, and that also got plenty of use in the Pincus kitchen. At least once a week, my mom would stuff that pressure cooker with little cubes of beef, cut-up vegetables and homemade dumplings. Then, she'd clamp the lid down tight and, several hours later, she would extract the most delicious beef stew you or I ever tasted (of course, this is a biased opinion).
But, aside from those two cooking aids, our kitchen boasted a number of appliances that got very infrequent employ, some just a single use. A lot of these appliances were obtained at our favorite appliance outlet — Million Dollar Pier on the famous Atlantic City Boardwalk. For those of you
familiar with Atlantic City in its 1960s heyday, you are probably wracking your brain to try to remember an appliance store among the rides, food stands and sideshow performances. Well, there
wasn't one, so you can stop. I am, of course, referring to the various Wheels of Chance that encircled the perimeter of the amusement pier, as well as those that dotted the actual Boardwalk. These games involved a giant wheel with at least a
zillion individual spots delineated by metal pegs. After placing a nickel (later a dime, and then even later, a
quarter) on a corresponding spot on the counter of the stall, the game operator would give the oversized arrow in the middle of the wheel a big spin. The excitement would build as the blurred arrow whizzed around and around until it slowed and eventually stopped — where its rubber pointer would indicate the winner for that round. I was always given the opportunity to choose which lucky spot would hold our coin for a particular round of the game. Would I choose a color or a number or one of the many choices of three letter names like "ART" or "BOB" or "MOM?" Aside from the excitement the wheel generated, the stand
itself was a spectacle. The rear shelved section of each of these booths was jam-packed with brand-new, in-the-box, brand name appliances punctuated with large, brightly-colored signs that read: "EASY TO WIN!" and "YOUR CHOICE!" In reality, it
wasn't easy to win and my parents would often spend
too much time and
too much money trying to win an unnecessary appliance that would end up costing
three times the price they would pay if they just went to our local discount department store. But where was the thrill in
that? However, no trip to Atlantic City was complete without an extended encounter at one of the wheels.
My mom won a Presto Hot Dogger one summer. TV chef Alton Brown cautions viewers to avoid "unitaskers" in the kitchen, referring to novelty cookware that serves just a single purpose. He says that every item in your kitchen should be able to perform a
multitude of tasks — save for a fire extinguisher, the only "unitasker" he says is permissible. Well, the Presto Hot Dogger is the unitasker to top all unitaskers. This little device accommodated a half dozen standard size hot dogs and, once there were curved and placed in position, made the cumbersome, strenuous, time-consuming
chore of cooking hot dogs a thing of the past. The hot dogs, held in place by impaling their little tips on two dangerously pointed (and wired-for-electricity) spikes, tasted like you'd imagine licking a newly-unplugged electric plug would taste. But, they were cooked in a
fraction of the time — if you call that "cooking." No amount of ketchup, mustard, relish, onions or even sauerkraut could mask the unmistakable flavor of 110 volts of household current. But we ate them, because it was the 70s and that's how Madison Avenue told us we should be cooking hot dogs in the "modern age." After a few uses, the Presto Hot Dogger was relegated to the hall closet and my mom went back to filling a big pot with water and boiling hot dogs when they were requested for dinner.
Another acquisition from the shelves at Million Dollar Pier was a waffle iron. My dad was most excited about this... probably because
he didn't have to actually
prepare the waffles. That was left to my mom. Every so often, my mom would surprise the family on a Sunday morning by making pancakes in her reliable ol' electric skillet. She could churn out those little golden beauties at an alarming rate, keeping my dad, my brother and me satisfied with an always-tall stack of hot cakes before each of us, often replenished before being asked. When we each had our fill, we'd vacate the kitchen table, leaving my mom to clean up and enjoy the last few pancakes by herself. But
waffles.... that was a different story. That required an
extra step, one my mom wasn't exactly
thrilled with. She didn't mind making pancakes, but waffles... well, those were just
square pancakes. The process of filling each little square reservoir with batter, closing the lid, watching a timer, gingerly removing the finish waffle without tearing... well, that was just... just....
stupid. Soon, my mom placed the waffle iron next to the hot dogger and the Pincuses went back to eating pancakes.
Useless appliances weren't just specific to the kitchen... or to my mom's exclusive usage.
Nope! One day, my dad won a Schick Hot Lather Machine at Million Dollar Pier. That thing sat in a place of honor on the bathroom counter, next to a couple of bottle of my dad's after-shave and my mom's prized atomizer of Giorgio. The Schick Hot Lather Machine was loaded with a standard size can of ordinary shaving cream, but after plugging it in, it released a wad of slightly warmed cream, just like you'd get at your local barber shop.... as though my father ever let his barber shave his face. The Schick Hot Lather Machine lasted, in regular usage, for as long as it took to use up one single can of shaving cream. After that, my dad went back to shaving with cream straight from the can... and the Schick Hot Lather Machine joined its kitchen pals in the hall closet.
When my parents passed away in the early 1990s, cleaning out their house was quite an undertaking. Apparently, my parents never threw anything away. When the hall closet was opened, it was as though we were hovering behind Howard Carter as he entered King Tut's tomb. Fittingly, that closet looked like its contents had been touched since 1922. There was a long-forgotten collection of one-time used appliances that hadn't seen the light of day since the Nixon Administration.
A fire destroyed the then-closed Million Dollar Pier in 1981. So much for making a return.
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