Kitchen Gizmos & Gadgets

Egg timers to strawberry hullers to space-age tart pans

By Jim Obert

Business Today

Rich Behring likes to call his business the "Cookie Cutter Capital of Cape Girardeau." That's because he has 60 different designs and 30 more on the way.

When he opened Kitchen Gizmos & Gadgets last October, Behring had fewer than 300 houseware items in the small shop downtown. Currently, the inventory has ballooned to more than 1,200 kitchen-related items -- some traditional, others quite quirky.

"I've always liked to fool around in the kitchen," says Behring, a former cook and mess sergeant in the Army and Reserves. "I've always thought this type of business would go. I'm a specialty shop."

Behring says people tell him there hasn't been a kitchen store in Cape since Gingham Square about 25 years ago. He says he got the idea to open one about eight years ago when he and his wife were Christmas shopping at Sikeston Outlet Mall.

"There were two houseware stores there, and I thought one could go over in Cape."

Behring, who was manager of a houseware department in a store in St. Louis in the 1970s, first sought financial backing for the business about six years ago. He was told Cape wasn't ready for a gourmet houseware store.

"I told the banker I would have basic houseware like potato peelers, potato mashers, measuring cups, spoons and things like that. But I knew I couldn't compete with the big box stores unless I also had a lot of the unusual items."

The banker declined to support the venture, but Behring found a way to finance it.

Kitchen Gizmos & Gadgets carries all the wooden spoons, ladles, paring knives and spaghetti measurers that are carried at discount stores, but he has things they don't -- asparagus peelers, ravioli makers, strawberry hullers and a color-changing, egg-shaped timer that indicates when hard-boiled eggs are done.

Also, there are three sizes of measuring cups with an angled indicator that tells how many cups or ounces have been poured by looking down at it -- you don't have to hold it up to your eyes.

There is a full selection of "grippies" -- cooking utensils designed to be helpful to people with arthritis or carpal tunnel syndrome. Ergonomically designed, they can be used left- or right-handed.

"I have a wide selection of coated cookware," says Behring. "It's not referred to as Teflon anymore. Teflon has gone the way of the horse and buggy. Now there's flexible, silicon-based items that are a direct result of space-age technology."

Silicon-based pans are in abundance -- pans for meat loaf, muffins, cakes, tarts, pies, candies and more.

"These pans are flexible," says Behring, twisting a meat loaf pan side to side. "They can go from the oven to the freezer to the microwave to the dishwasher."

Behring says he has ordered some egg extractors that quickly remove shells from hard-boiled eggs. He says people have asked for them after seeing one tested on "Does It Work Wednesday?" a weekly segment during the 10 p.m. newscast on KFVS-12.

"The woman who tested it gave it an F, then the news guy did it and it worked. So she tried it again the next week and gave it a C-minus. But it works fine if you put enough direct push on it. It'll whip that shell right off it."

Behring sells square hamburger presses. They make hamburger paddies that resemble those sold at Wendy's. He says he bought them as novelty items, but they fit in with the low-carb diet craze sweeping the nation.

"People think they're getting too much bread in their diet. Well, with this you use two slices of sandwich bread, which supposedly has less carbohydrates than a bun," says Behring, opening and closes the hamburger press, which looks like something George Foreman might market.

At Kitchen Gizmos & Gadgets, there is a wide selection of stainless steel cookware -- restaurant grade. Behring says some of his customers are downtown restaurateurs. He has sold slotted serving spoons to Port Cape, Lucite punch ladles to Mollie's and assorted items to beds and breakfasts.

"I've got downtown merchants telling me their glad I'm here," says Behring, who exhibited houseware at the recent Homebuilders Show at the Show Me Center.

Mechanics don't but their work tools at a discount store, says Behring, because they want quality tools to work with. He says the same is true for a professional chef or just someone who takes pride in their cooking.

"I've got a potato masher here for $9, and it'll last a lifetime."