A sink your sous chef will thank you for

Just when I thought we had run out of ways to eliminate the need for us to do the dirty work in the kitchen, I stumbled into the completely foreign land of the prep sink. Until seeing the Kohler Crevasse Prep Sink and its cousins, I was under the impression that a kitchen sink is a singular, possibly double-basined place for all rinsing, draining, disposing, and soaking needs, with some allowance for shapes and colors.

Not so, apparently. I should preface the following post by explaining how I currently deal with my food scraps. Living in New York in an apartment in Brooklyn, I have little to no say in the appliance set in my kitchen. I can buy as many small appliances, gadgets, pots, and pans as my budget will allow, but when it comes to the dishwasher, stove, and sink, I'm stuck with what I have.

For the most part, this works out great: I have a gas range, a new dishwasher, and an oven that so far, has been able to keep up with my baking hobby. The bane of my existence in the kitchen is the sink, which doesn't have a garbage disposal. I make several trips to the trash every time I cook with handfuls of wilted leaves, peels, and other gooey unidentifiable messes so that I can avoid clogging the drain. Most of the time, this happens anyway.

So the excitement about the Kohler Crevasse is laced with resentment, both because I know I'm not able to install extra sinks in the granite-colored laminate countertop, and because it angers me to think that I'm the only one left who has to carry gross food leftovers to the garbage by hand. Selfishness aside, however, the Crevasse really is kind of nifty.

The prep sink is a narrow stainless steel slit that you install in your counter wherever you do your chopping. It's built on a slanted angle, so when you toss your food scraps into it and press the button, they'll wash neatly down the drain. You can press the button for a quick rinse, or for bigger scraps, you can kick it up a notch with Kohler's Cynchronous rinsing system, which synchronizes the rinse and garbage disposal cycles. A solid blue light lets you know that the rinse cycle is on, and a flashing blue light indicates that the synchronized garbage disposal is working.

Kohler's Web site lists the Crevasse prep sink at $1,350 and up, a hefty price tag unless you're a home owner with some wiggle room in your budget for luxury splurges. For those of you who, like me, lack the means necessary for such a dramatic sink upgrade, consider something a little bit cheaper.