I felt like Nicolas Cage hunting for treasure. The bright beam of the lantern was guiding my way as I peered into the bottom shelves of the kitchen cupboards.

The light threw eerie shadows as I reached in, carefully removing old utensils, some of which hadn’t seen the light of day since the last century.

“Dad? What are you doing?”

Startled, I turned around.

Bonnie and her boyfriend, Arna, were staring down at me. I guess I was a strange sight — sprawled on the kitchen floor holding a 1,000-candlepower lantern, surrounded by an array of dusty kitchen appliances and little-used bakeware.

“I’ve been hunting for the food processor,” I said, knocking over part of a Fry Baby that clattered to the floor.

“It’s way back in the cupboard,” I said, crouching down low again. “I’m going to use it to chop up some onions when I make the chili.”

I didn’t want to say chopping onions makes me cry.

Must-haves

The Culinary Laser Thermometer accurately checks the surface temperature of any cooking or grilling surface so food can be added at just the right time with no burning or sticking. It also can check food temperatures.

I can’t remember when I last used the food processor.

I do remember it as being a must-have, time-saving appliance. And when we first got it, we did use it fairly often to slice, shred and chop. My son, Matt, tells me he remembers when we got it in the late ’80s and regularly made Oreo cookie blizzards.

But like a lot of our other impulse-buy appliances or utensils, it eventually made its way into the lower kitchen catacombs.

Hunting down the old food processor made me wonder what kitchen gadgets were making this year’s Christmas wish lists.

Styling with silicone

Audio: Jayni Carey on silicone products Audio: Jayni Carey on a silicone baster HotSpot silicone hotpads Epinions.com reviews on silicone bakeware Mezzaluna Mincing Set Microplane graters VillaWare Waffle Stick Maker KitchenAide stand mixers Grill Alert Talking Remote Thermometer Bonjour Culinary Laser Themometer

Silicone bakeware and potholders seem to be the rage this season.

“Anything made out of silicone would be very popular this year,” said Jayni Carey, host of “Jayni’s Kitchen,” a cooking show on Sunflower Broadband Channel 6.

Carey told me she liked the square silicone Hot Spot hot pads and oven mitts.

And she gave high marks to a silicone bowl baster and brush by Orka.

“I really like it because regular basting brushes usually get destroyed from the heat sooner or later and they don’t clean up very well. The little brush on the end (is made of) little silicone bristles so it’s just really easy to clean,” Carey said.

Also fairly new on the shelves this year are silicone bakeware such as cake pans and muffin pans.

According to some reviews on epinions.com, silicone bakeware is easy to clean and store and bakes very evenly.

It comes in a variety of colors. And because of the properties of the silicone, you can use it in the oven, freeze it and use it in the microwave. It’s also nonstick and pliable and it can go in the dishwasher.

And it’s relatively inexpensive to try out. I found a KitchenAid Silicone three-piece bakeware set online for $30.

Eggs and waffles

Carey said during the holidays, many manufacturers come out with new twists on old favorites, such as electric mixers, fondue pots, egg cookers and waffle irons.

Among the latest in waffle ware is the VillaWare Waffle Stick Maker. It is available at Williams-Sonoma for about $70.

The waffle stick maker creates waffles that pull apart into thin 4.75-inch by 1.5-inch pieces you can dip into syrups, Carey said.

KitchenAid stand mixers, which have optional accessories ranging from pasta makers to food grinders to ice cream makers, are always good to have around the kitchen, Carey said. This year, they’re coming out in a variety of colors, including dijon, cinnamon, olive and terra-cotta.

She also touted some new kitchen tools that caught her eye, including a scoop meat baller, a mezzaluna chopping tool and a microplane grater for zesting.

“You turn on any cooking show and all the chefs are using microplane zesters to make lemon zests and lime zests,” she said.

Kitchen lasers

Carey also said this seemed to be the year for high-tech meat thermometers.

One is the Grill Alert Talking Remote Thermometer being sold by Brookstone for $75. You insert the stainless steel transmitting probe into the meat, then enter what kind of meat it is and how you want it cooked.

You then clip the battery-powered monitor/receiver to your belt and walk away from the grill or the oven, up to 300 feet.

Voice prompts alert you when the food is “almost ready” and “ready.” And a bar graph on the LED screen shows you the progress.

I also found a thermometer that appeals to the sci-fi buff in me — the Culinary Laser Thermometer by Bonjour. It costs about $90.

It looks cool, in sort of a Luke-Skywalker-meets-Emeril-Lagasse kind of way.

The Culinary Laser Thermometer never touches the food. It uses infrared technology to measure the surface temperature of what you’re cooking.

Just aim the black, pistol-like laser and pull the red trigger. It shoots a reading of the surface temperature of what you’re cooking that gives you instant feedback on an LCD screen on the pistol grip.

Crying for a solution

After I found the food processor in the cupboard, I restacked the old appliances and cookware into the catacombs. Then I spent about 10 minutes cleaning some yellow grime from the machine before I assembled it and put in a cutting disk.

“It says this side up for shredding and this side up for slicing,” I told another of my daughters, Katy, who had stopped by to help.

That’s when I realized we were missing some pieces — the chopping blade was hopelessly lost somewhere else in the house. And the oval plastic rod used to push in the ingredients was gone.

No problem. I pulled out a 10-inch chef’s knife, quartered a large red onion and dropped in the pieces into the food processor. It sliced them up nicely.

Then I dumped the slices on a cutting board and started dicing them by hand with the chef’s knife.

As I chopped them the old-fashioned way, the strong fumes made my eyes tear up. As the tears kept coming, I thought of a new product I haven’t seen yet — onion goggles.

Of course, they’d need to be made out of silicone. And available in colors like dijon and terra-cotta. And if any of you manufacturers are considering it, don’t forget the laser sights.