skinny girls & mayonnaise

I received a promotional email from Sur la Table. The subject line read, “Jenn’s Gadget Picks”. So I clicked on it, and there smiling at me was a picture of a cute girl that said, “Meet our very own Gadget Girl, Jenn!” And I thought to myself, “Oh no… you didn’t really just create a Jenn the Gadget girl for me to blog about, did you!???”

Jenn.

It was like a gift from the heavens.

If you’ve been following my blog for any period of time, you’ve probably stumbled on one of my many “Good Gadget, Bad Gadget” posts. If not, let me suffice to say that I am a gadget skeptic. Most of the great gadgets —  potato ricers, cheese graters, garlic presses, mortar & pestles, beer openers — have been around a really, really long time. Most of the newer gadgets there was no need for except to create gift and holiday marketing opportunities for places like Sur la Table. And now, we had Jenn.

What could I learn about Jenn? They claimed she was their “Cooks’ Tools buyer,” but was she a real person or an avatar? And if she was real, was Jenn really her name? Before I explored her suggestions for what new gadgets my life needed (they did seek me out, after all), I would try to find a few answers.

A search of “Jenn Gadget Girl” on the Sur la Table website brought up only “Girls Night Out: Small Plates,” an event the store apparently hosts. Likewise, nothing in the “Company Information” or press release sections. A Google search of “Sur la Table Jenn Tools Buyer” produced no relevant hits (the closest was Jenn Van Nostrand, assistant buy planner at Nordstrom, Seattle). I even tried “Jenn Gadget Girl Hot” to see what I would get, but no luck. My last hopes were Facebook and Linked In, where once again, I struck out.

I went to the Contact Us page on the website. I was required to choose a topic for my question, and since none seemed directly relevant (i.e. there was no category for “Jenn Gadget Girl” or “Are the people featured in your emails real?”), I chose “Website problems/suggestions”. After all, it was something of a website problem that I couldn’t get any answers to who Jenn was there.

While I awaited a response (an instant auto-reply assured me they were looking into it), I popped back over to the website to check out Jenn’s recommendations. The email assured me that these were “fruit and veggie tools she wouldn’t be without.” Here were some of the more inspiring of Jenn’s can’t-live-without gadgets:

Onion goggles.

*    *    *

Cauliflower corer.

*    *    *

Onion holder (to go with your new onion goggles).

*    *    *

Cornichon slicer (this one must win some sort of award for the most obscure and unnecessary gadget ever).

*    *    *

Until, that is…

The French green bean slicer.

Quite honestly, I’m not sure how I lived without these items all this time.

Was there anything worthwhile amidst the corn holders, butter buttons, herb mincers, oil misters and various corers and de-stemmers that make Jenn’s world turn? Sure — a potato ricer and a cheese grater.

As of the publication of this post, one week after my email from Jenn, I had not yet received a reply from Sur la Table as to whether or not she was real. I’m still waiting…