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!”

Hi [REDACTED],

I had a chance to use the Stormtrooper Waffle Maker and I’m happy to report it works pretty well.  Not great, which I’ll get into, but it certainly made competent waffles that absolutely look like a stormtrooper head.

I’m going to hit this one as a stream-of-consciousness list of thoughts as they occur to me in the moment, starting with:

1. I like the relatively small footprint of the unit, but also it only makes one waffle at a time, which is totally normal of course, but I would love a dual side by side version that makes two simultaneously.  Say an imperial stormtrooper head (current) next to a First Order Stormtrooper.  Anyway, the good thing about this waffle iron is that the waffles themselves are pretty good size.  I made one for me and one for my wife, and along with some sliced apple and hard-boiled egg, made for a good-sized breakfast.  If you’re making waffles for the whole family, you better get up pretty early… or maybe start the night before… because you are in it for the long haul.

2. Which brings me to the length of time it takes to make a waffle.  Instructions say 3-4 minutes.  Nah, double it.  If you use a whole cup of batter, rather than 3/4, definitely double that.  Even then, the inside was a little less than fully cooked.  But I let one sit in there for like 12 minutes and it was nicely browned and cooked through.

3. Oh, also I had the temperature setting turned up to MAX the whole time.  That dial is kinda useless.  I can’t imagine having it set lower at all, ever.  Unless you’re making little thin 1/4 cup waffle-ettes, little baby stormtrooper heads… stormtoddlers.

4.  Speaking of controls, the indicator light that goes off when the iron is hot works great.  That same green light is supposed to go off when the waffle is done.  Nope.  Not even close.  Like I said, double it.  I ignored that light while making waffles.

5.  Are they really waffles?  Seems to me really they’re stormtrooper head pancakes.  I don’t know, what’s the difference really?  Are the square divots we think of as unique to waffles the only thing separating them from pancakes?  I have no idea, it seems akin to the difference between a violin and a fiddle (it’s the same instrument – the difference is in how they’re played).  This is a deeply profound philosophical discussion best conducted over several glasses of fine whiskey and really has no impact on my review of your waffle iron.  On that note, let us continue.

6.  No batter stuck to the iron, top or bottom.  This, to me, is the number one positive aspect of the waffle maker.  I sprayed some Pam on beforehand, as the instructions suggested and sure enough, those would-be waffles popped right out with a silicone spatula.  Excellent.

7.  Cleaning it was pretty much a breeze.  I wiped it down with a slightly damp paper towel.  There was some hard to get oil pools around the ridges of the stormtrooper’s head and inside some nooks and crannies, but I would imagine these occurrences would be far worse in an traditional waffle iron with all those little squares. I used a q-tip to get those little daps of oil.  Is that OCD?

8.  The lid hinge seemed a bit loose to me.  Which would make sense actually if it were designed to include a bit bulkier items like:

9.  Wouldn’t it be great if this thing doubled as a panini style press?  just add a lock to the lid so you can ‘close and clamp it’ (do I hear a Ronco “set and forget it” tag line being coined?) and you have yourself a sandwich press.  In fact, I’m definitely going to try this at some point.  I think it’ll work nicely.  After all:

10. the waffle maker looks just like a george foreman grill.  is this a good thing or a bad thing?  hell, I don’t know… depends on your personal predilections for, or against, mr. foreman.

Overall, I’m quite content with the stormtrooper waffle maker.  It makes waffles.  Makes them pretty well actually.  I even added some pomegranate seeds to the batter and it handled that a-okay.  this weekend I might even go wild with some fresh blueberries.  I think it’ll do just fine.  Even though it takes longer than suggested to make the waffles and the indicator light goes off way too early, I think this waffle maker is a fine addition to anyone’s array of kitchen gadgets.  I’m going to definitely hang on to this thing… I’ve never owned a waffle iron before.

– Cohan

p.s. I am a little surprised there isn’t a matching Darth Vader syrup dispenser.

p.p.s.  I just realized the reason the waffles take so long to cook in this thing is exactly because there are no square divots.  With those things on the top and bottom, the batter is spread over a larger surface, a hot surface cooking it.  Without it, you’ve got what are essentially pancakes, which always take longer to cook than waffles.  It’s the divots.  Is that right word, divots?  I don’t know.  Do you guys make a death star waffle maker?  i’ve seen them, but don’t know if that’s you.  Regardless, I bet with the sort of grid like nature of the design, it makes waffles faster.

Hi [REDACTED],

This is my last review of the items you recently sent me to test out, The Lightsaber Immersion Blender.  First of all, this thing has got some weight to it (a good thing).  Makes you feel like you’re holding a power tool, which I guess is exactly what an immersion blender is.  I used it last weekend when I made a huge batch of marinara sauce for freezing.  I dumped 6 large cans of whole peeled san marzano tomatoes into a 10 quart stockpot with a large jar of marinated artichoke hearts and another large jar of garlic stuffed castelveltrano olives, along with some other herbs and spices.  I heated it until it started simmering, then unleashed the lightsaber immersion blender on the whole kit and kaboodle.  I really did the job well.  It cut through the contents of that stockpot like a warm knife through butter.  Any time the head of the immersion blender got close to the bottom of the pot, it sucked it right to it, like a powerful vacuum cleaner exactly how a good immersion blender should.  After maybe ten minutes of really getting in there, I had a nicely puree’d tomato sauce with zero chunks.  Usually I use a potato masher so I have chunks, but this time I wanted to created a nice smooth sauce to see how the lightsaber blender handled it.  It did great.  Zero complaints.  My only suggestion would be a longer stem.  It’s just a little bit short.  It was almost too short to reach the bottom of the stock pot without submerging the handle… almost.  But one more can of tomatoes and it wouldn’t have been long enough.  I probably wouldn’t have even noted it’s length, but I already have a great immersion blender I love, so I compared them.  The Lightsaber is…

You know what?  Disregard everything I wrote about the length.  I was wrong.  I just went and compared them side by side, the lightsaber with my Kitchen Aid immersion blender and they’re exactly the same length.  The handle of my Kitchen Aid is an inch or two longer, but the actual blender attachment is the same.  I misjudged it.

Okay, so my actual only suggestion would be, again to have a charging dock instead of a AC cord.  It sucks having to wrangle the cord so it doesn’t catch on fire while using it in a pot on the stove.  I don’t know how feasible this would be.  I would imagine to create the kind of power an immersion blender needs to function properly you might have to use a wall outlet, but one can dream.  Just imagine…a charging dock that looks like R2D2.  handle of the immersion blender sticking out his head like Return of the Jedi.  Ah, geek dreams.

Well, there you have it.  If I didn’t already own an immersion blender, the Lightsaber immersion blender would get a lot of use.  In fact, it still may.  It’s pretty looks pretty bad ass.  And it works well.

And here ends my reviews of all the items you sent me:  Stormtrooper Waffle Iron, Lightsaber Salt and Pepper Grinders, Stormtrooper Toaster, R2D2 Toaster and Lightsaber Immersion Blender.  I hope these reviews have been useful in some way.  Should you ever decide you’d want to send me more merchandise to review, please do not hesitate to sent it along.  I’m happy to test out anything you’d like, and I rather enjoy writing these reviews.

Thank you.

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[NOTE:  It has been several weeks since I sent in my last review and I have yet to receive a single reply to any of the reviews I’ve sent in.  No idea what that means, but if at any point I hear back from Uncanny Brands I’ll be sure to update here on Aberration Type.]