Multipurpose cooking appliance

A cooking appliance comprising:

• a base, a heat source, and a cooking element mounted to said base, the cooking element providing a cooking surface upon which food can be cooked, characterized by said cooking element having a plurality of separate cooking surfaces, at least one of said separate cooking surfaces having a cooking characteristic different from a cooking characteristic of another of said separate cooking surfaces, said plurality of cooking surfaces being arranged about a central axis in fixed relative positions and mounted to said base to allow said cooking element to be selectively oriented by rotation about said central axis to position a selected one of said separate cooking surfaces for cooking said food, and wherein each of said separate cooking surfaces extends in a direction substantially parallel to said central axis and is circumferentially adjacent another of said separate cooking surfaces, wherein two of said cooking elements are arranged to be adjacent to each other, are mounted to said base for rotational motion about respective longitudinal axes, and are mounted to said base for linear motion toward and away from each other.

A cooking appliance comprising:

• a base, a heat source, and a cooking element mounted to said base, the cooking element providing a cooking surface upon which food can be cooked, characterized by said cooking element having a plurality of separate cooking surfaces, at least one of said separate cooking surfaces having a cooking characteristic different from a cooking characteristic of another of said separate cooking surfaces, said plurality of cooking surfaces being arranged about a central axis in fixed relative positions and mounted to said base to allow said cooking element to be selectively oriented by rotation about said central axis to position a selected one of said separate cooking surfaces for cooking said food, and wherein each of said separate cooking surfaces extends in a direction substantially parallel to said central axis and is circumferentially adjacent another of said separate cooking surfaces, wherein said cooking element comprises at least three of said separate cooking surfaces, two of said at least three of said separate cooking surfaces are rectangular, two of said at least three of said separate cooking surfaces are congruent, and further comprising two of said cooking elements, each of said two cooking elements being mounted to said base for rotation about a respective said central axis and said two cooking elements being adjacent each other.

A cooking appliance comprising:

• a base, a heat source, and a cooking element mounted to said base, the cooking element providing a cooking surface upon which food can be cooked, characterized by said cooking element having a plurality of separate cooking surfaces, at least one of said separate cooking surfaces having a cooking characteristic when in a cooking orientation that is different from a cooking characteristic of another of said separate cooking surfaces when in said cooking orientation, said plurality of cooking surfaces being arranged about a central axis in fixed relative positions and mounted to said base to allow said cooking element to be selectively oriented by rotation about said central axis to position a selected one of said separate cooking surfaces for cooking said food, and wherein each of said separate cooking surfaces extends in a direction substantially parallel to said central axis and is circumferentially adjacent another of said separate cooking surfaces.

A cooking appliance comprising a base, a heat source, and a cooking element mounted to said base, the cooking element providing a plurality of separate cooking surfaces upon which food can be cooked, at least one of said separate cooking surfaces having a first configuration that provides a first cooking characteristic and another of said separate cooking surfaces having a second configuration that is different from said first configuration and that provides a second cooking characteristic that is different from said first cooking characteristic, said plurality of cooking surfaces being arranged about a central axis in fixed relative positions and mounted to said base to allow said cooking element to be selectively oriented by rotation about said central axis to position a selected one of said separate cooking surfaces for cooking said food, wherein each of said separate cooking surfaces extends in a direction substantially parallel to said central axis and is circumferentially adjacent another of said separate cooking surfaces.