convection oven

In the end of January I was invited to Chicago along with 40 other bloggers to attend the Kenmore Blogger Summit. Since I am a fan of all things Kenmore I decided to brave Chicago’s winter and have 24 hours in the city.

It’s not easy to get to Chicago in the middle of a snowstorm. The flight was delayed and leaving the airport was more complicated than it would have been in Los Angeles or Bali. I think maybe next year’s summit should take place in Bali.

The good news is that I got there in time to hear a presentation about Google Plus. I kept waiting to hear about features I didn’t know about and I found myself oddly delighted that I did, in fact, know what there is to know about Google+. I’m not sure why that gave me so much pleasure, but it did.

That night I had drinks with friends and pretty much passed out cold by midnight, which was only 10pm my time.

The next morning everyone was whisked off from the hotel to Kenmore Studio. Everyone but me. I was late, but to be fair I was like five minutes late… if that. So I hopped into a taxi a met them there.

While at the Kenmore studio we oohed and ahhed spontaneously as chefs gave us tricks and tips to while using Kenmore products. The blender is quick and makes a kicky smoothie. Everyone loves a green drink and wants to add kale. I am not everyone but still I love a smoothie. We played with the toasters (I own one incidentally and it’s amazing). If you don’t own a convection toaster oven your life is not complete.

I roast baby and fingerling potatoes in my convection toaster oven. I add nothing to the potatoes and toss them in my toaster oven for 15 minutes. If they’re big I might go up to about 20 or 25 minutes. That toaster oven has singlehandedly added potatoes to our menu.

They brought in a personal trainer to talk about how you can turn vacuuming into exercise. It was funny and Tanis definitely stole the show… I recently bought myself the Intuition vacuum and I swear by it. It’s amazing to have a canister vac if you’re on stairs and there’s a little red and green light that indicates when floors are clean or dirty. It’s just fun, and cleaning house isn’t typically what I’d describe as fun.

The stand mixer is really nice and it features a light that shines down onto your mixing bowl. Kenmore added some features to it’s washer and dryer… which I’m sure are great, but at the end of the day these washers just clean the clothes and clean them well.

What was amazing and had everyone gasping for breath was the new refrigerator. I can’t do it justice, so if you’re looking for a new refrigerator or if you just want to see what you won’t be getting because you don’t need a new refrigerator here’s a quick video.

We also had a slow cooker challenge which my group did NOT win… and I tasted our stew and it was kind of gross… Of course I had to think of my friend Mike who is hysterically funny and swears that mothers who love their children don’t use slow cookers. I’m not sure I can agree with him… a slow cooker sure would be nice for making chili or soup if I lived somewhere cold.

The folks at Kenmore are smart about their product line. They’ve packed in technology, features and sleek design and they’re smart about social media too. Follow them on twitter at @KenmoreConnect and interact on Facebook too, the facebook page in particular shares a lot of fun stuff.