Courtesy of Kitchenaid

“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” old Grandmother Techeye used to say. “Depending on your choice of spices, it can also be the way to his insurance policy,” she always added, a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

Grandma sure knew a lot about men – she must have cooked for seven or eight husbands over the years – and her kitchen was always filled with cookie jars. So perhaps it’s no surprise that the kitchen is our third-favorite room in the house, following the harem chamber and the cheese pantry.

Kitchens are magical places that Techeye understands in principle but not in practice, places where mundane ingredients like flour, sugar and milk are transmogrified into morsels of divinity. They are temples swathed in mystery and bacon, monuments testifying to the transcendent glory of eupepsia. Most importantly, the kitchen is where you find cookies. And beer.

Courtesy of Fred

Just don’t expect to read about hand mixers, because they’re evil. In fact, here’s some free advice: If anyone ever says “Hey, wanna get nasty with my new hand mixer?” your answer should be “No.” Even if that person has emerged from a gentle ocean froth on a giant seashell, walked to shore on a miraculous catwalk of inexplicably erotic foam and stood naked before you, vibrating with the promise of unearthly, hand-mixed delight … even then, the answer is “No.”

Why? Because it never ends well, that’s why. Stick to stand mixers, which are generally superior to hand mixers and much more difficult to get nasty with.

Take the Artisan five-quart tilt-head stand mixer from KitchenAid (www.kitchenaid.com), for example. For $399.99 you get an all-metal machine with a 325-watt motor designed to craft wholesome deliciousness with little or no bodily harm. And the five-quart bowl yields a splendid nine-dozen cookies in one batch.

On the other hand, the Artisan comes with a “flat beater,” a “dough hook” and a “wire whip,” all of which sound suspiciously lascivious, so perhaps it’s not much better than a hand mixer after all.

Courtesy of Hog Wild

There’s not a whole lot more to say about them, except that we’ve always found matryoshka dolls to be a little creepy. The idea of five or more other people hiding in your stomach, with faces just like yours, ready to pop out at any moment … ugh.

So let’s move on, shall we? Last up is a kitchen gadget that is plainly for lazy people like us. It’s called the “Twirling Spaghetti Fork,” and that pretty much says it all. The fork requires two AAA batteries to work and it boasts a sassy-sounding “dishwasher-safe metal prong end.” It’s sold for $10.45 by its maker, Hog Wild (www.hogwildtoys.com), which is a couple of bucks cheaper than on Amazon.

By the way, we have our eyes on a number of other kitchen-oriented gadgets from Hog Wild, like the Kabuki Bottle Opener, the Beetle Spork and the Moo Mixer Supreme. Watch out, cheese pantry – with toys like these, the kitchen will soon be our second-favorite room.

Ever been propositioned on a beach by a naked person wielding a hand mixer? Let us know: techeye.wbj@gmail.com