Field Test: Citrus Spritzer
It's a rare day that I'll turn down the opportunity to bring a fun new gadget into my kitchen and make a bit of a mess. When the Citrus Spritzer came through the office, I jumped at the chance to test it out "in the field." The little wonder's claim to fame was that you simply pop it into your citrus fruit of choice and it will generate a light mist of citrus juice, as easy as spritzing water. I had a large bowl of citrus fruit at home, just waiting to be spritzed. It was fate.
I started with a small lemon, which I rolled gently on the counter to get the juices flowing. "Better give this little gadget a fighting chance," I thought, skeptical that it could work. But lo! A couple pumps and I was getting perfect little puffs of lemon mist falling over my soon-to-be-sauteing green beans.
The downside is that the mist is short-lived. Once the spritzer exhausts the juice in the section of the fruit immediately around the intake straw, you have two options: Remove the spritzer and poke another hole in a different area, or remove the spritzer and juice the fruit through the hole the spritzer left. I recommend the second option. If you poke a new hole in the same fruit, you'll cover yourself and your table in citrus juice, which squirts enthusiastically out of the existing hole.
Once its functionality had been confirmed with citrus, I looked at my full fruit bowl (which had several other delicious produce options) and I answered, "Challenge: accepted!"
Out of curiosity, I tried to spritz the juice from a peach, a tomato and a cucumber. The peach and the tomato were delightful surprises — both worked, but with the same limitations as the citrus. The cucumber, however, bested the spritzer, refusing to give up the misty goods. Now all I have to do is come up with a recipe that requires peach or tomato spritz.
All in all, it's a neat gadget. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who has to have the latest kitchen gadget. But the fun and surprising ingenuity of this little gadget is perfect for the home-cook-enthusiast friend who delights in finding new gadgets to try, and who will on occasion whip a particularly fun one out to impress friends, but doesn't commit to long-term favorites.