Hi [REDACTED],

I wanted to let you know I had a chance to try out a couple of the Star Wars items you sent me.  Luckily, it addition to being a full-fledged booger-eating Star Wars nerd, I like to cook.  I like to think one offsets the other, which is why, I’m sure, I’m still married.  So, I’m going to start with the best thing I’ve tried so far…

Lightsaber Salt & Pepper Grinders

I love these two little gadgets.  I’m using the hell out of these.  I love that they’re electric, which is something I never realized I wanted until I tried these.  Like I said, I cook a lot, which means seasoning often at every stage.  Twisting the manual grinders became such an annoyance to me that I started buying the pre-ground sea salt and black pepper and keeping them in little cellars next to my stove.  The only drawback to that really is that you sacrifice a fuller flavor by using pre-ground.  Salt and pepper (especially pepper) are a lot like coffee in that regard.

Side note:  When in the hell are you guys gonna make a Darth Vader coffee maker?  Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Back to the grinders.  They have a nice solid heft to them.  I don’t feel like they’re gonna break every time I use them.  I like the caps on the ends so you don’t spill salt and pepper all over when not in use, I like the size and the way they look on the countertop (like I said, big time nerd).  The buttons on top are great, easy to press with either your thumb or finger.  It grinds nice and fast, although I wouldn’t mind if the salt were a little slower, but I think it’s because I couldn’t find the right kind of true rock salt and had to settle for coarse sea salt, which might already be a little too small for the grinder.   Oh, and I almost forgot my favorite part… I must have used these guys 4 or 5 times before I realized there are lights on the end.  THAT. RULES.  Especially with salt, it can be difficult to see how much you’re really applying.  It’s the one way cellars win out over grinders, control.  But having those lights, hot damn, it’s so much easier to see how much seasoning your dumping into your dish.  So a great idea that had never occurred to me.

Now, after all that gushing, I have 3 minor complaints and/or suggestions:

1. Man oh man would i love to ditch the AA batteries in favor of a charger of some kind.  Like a cell phone cable, or even some sort of dock.  I’ve seen those electric corkscrews that rest on an always plugged in dock on your countertop and I dig.  Something like that would really be a bonus.  Then if you want to get crazy, you have a model with one or two USB ports so you can charge your phone while you’re cooking dinner.  Maybe have a version where the dock is also a bluetooth speaker.  The possibilities are endless.

2. When you have the grinder taken apart to change the batteries or add more salt and pepper, the battery compartment just sort of rests on the salt/pepper reservoir in an awkward, unbalanced way.  Until you put the main piece back on and give it a twist to lock, it seems really unstable.  This is a minor quibble, by the way.

3.  For the size of these grinders, the compartments for the pre-ground salt and pepper seem awfully small.  If you guys could lose the batteries in favor of a charging system there’d be more space for a larger quantity of salt and pepper.  I know I go through a lot of both and the less times I have to refill, the better.

Like I said, so far this is my favorite item you’ve sent me.  That being said, I’ve only tried these, the storm trooper waffle iron and the storm trooper toaster.  Those reviews will be coming in separate emails.  I’ll be trying out the R2D2 toaster and lightsaber immersion blender soon.

One more suggestion:  a Sarlacc Pit meat grinder.

– Cohan

p.s.  okay, last suggestion:  Admiral Ackbar’s “It’s a mouse trap!”