Meals on wheels (but without the gasoline bill)

The portable kitchenette rolls on wheels that only hit the floor when you fold up the legs.

(Credit: Courtesy Cuisinart, via Yanko Design)

We at the CNET appliance blog network are no strangers to portable appliances; we've already shown you the perks of portable grills and portable ride-on freezers. But in our busy-bee age, where almost everything has been resized and reshaped to be more conveniently transportable, single portable appliances just don't seem to be enough anymore. So how do we satisfy our appetite for portability? By combining all of the appliances that we'd ever need into one all-inclusive, gloriously compact package.

Enter the Transportable Kitchenette. Powered by only a wall socket plug, the unit includes a stowaway cubby for food while you schlep it to the chosen venue, a collapsible counter for prep, an electric dual-burner cooktop, and a sink for washing up when you're done. There's a feel-good reason to like the roll-away kitchen cart, too. The unit was designed by Aurelien Banerjee & Olivier Picard, apparently after charitable groups expressed a need for something to make cooking on the go more practical (more practical, say, than a mobile soup kitchen). They also hoped that the mobile cook station could be used as an educational tool to foster independence in people who are in assisted-living situations (Yanko Design). As if the ultimate in personal culinary portability wasn't enough, the sleek compact kitchen is also a significant improvement on the traditional soup kitchen serving station.

No word on retail deployment just yet, but as this blogger muses, the mini-kitchen "would definitely serve as a great toy for tailgate parties." Then again, when was the last time you were at a tailgate party that included any cleanup other than "throw your paper plate away?"