The latest product from the high-end kitchen equipment company Breville is a portable induction cooktop it dubbed the Control °Freak. Based on the name, this is the kind of gizmo for, well, control freaks—the kind of people who want to know what the temperature of their stove is at all times (hence, that silly ° mark in its name) and can’t abide the inherent unpredictability of gas cooking, the standard for most home cooktops.
“What is medium-high heat? What does that mean? You just don’t know,” said Alex Talbot, owner of Curiosity Doughnuts in Stockton, N.J., and author of the blog, Ideas in Food, also the title of his book. “It’s like measuring flour with a teacup.”
