Fill the cylinder of the Turkey Cannon with your favorite cooking liquid, stick a turkey on it, and let it roast to perfection. Like in a beer can chicken, the liquid helps cook and flavor the bird from the inside, resulting in a faster cooking time and more flavor. [via CNET]
When you're in a bind, the Swiss Army knife usually does just the trick. Nail file, screwdriver, and all-around snipper of things—what a little superhero. But what about when your tummy grumbles? Also an emergency, except the knife can't really help. Introducing the Swiss Chocolate Knife. A one-time use, but what a good time it would be. [via Gizmodo]
Speaking of hunting, have you always wanted your thermos to look like ammo? This shotgun canister will earn you major points with outdoorsy hunter types. $24.77, from greatbigstuff.com [via Boing Boing Gadgets]
George Foreman, the boxing champ and patron saint for college students eating grease-less chicken breasts everywhere, has reached a whole new level. His new Lean Mean Fryer ($149.99) undergoes a "spin cycle," like a washing machine, to get rid of fried fattiness. The Smart Spin™ technology claims to knock out "up to 55 percent" of grease, but still deliver on crispiness.
This spinny fryer makes me wonder: what if you take fried foods on the swing ride at the fair? Will it have the same effect?
BANG, BANG, BANG! That's the sound cleanliness makes! The Kitchen Gun is just like any normal gun (dangerous, makes loud noises, could kill people) except it also turns a dirty, grungy sink into a sparkly surface (with bullet holes, mind you). This silly commercial appeared on the BBC sketch comedy show, The Peter Serafinowicz Show. Video, after the jump.
You know, you're just askin' for failure when you use a microwave for anything other than reheating leftovers or popping popcorn. But I'm weirdly drawn to this crazy bacon-cooking contraption. Hang the strips from the lid of the WowBacon Cooker pitcher and the fat renders down into the bottom while it cooks. Sure, you're not going to get as juicy a bacon experience as you would if you pan-cooked the strips, but think of the ease of collecting the fat for use in other recipes. My guess is that this would be perfect for a recipe that called for crisp-cooked bacon—though who knows how well a microwave would do "crisp." $19.95 plus $7 shipping and handling, from wowbacon.com [via Boing Boing]
Photograph from Amadika on Flickr.
A kitchen tool for a chef is like a bowling ball for a bowler. It's special, and sometimes so irreplaceable, even a similar-looking, similar-functioning object of the same name will not do the trick. Today, the San Francisco Chronicle revealed 10 of their favorite kitchen tools—from the offset spatula (a spatula at an angle for maximum bending) to the spider (a hand-held, portable strainer).
What are your favorite kitchen tools?
If Starbucks and Staples got married, they might birth this latte printer machine. Recently featured at a graphics trade show in Los Angeles, the OnLatte repurposes your standard inkjet printer to use caramel syrup instead of ink. Nothing says good coffee like a foamy recreation of the winged Pegasus. [via the Kitchn]
For the person in your life who loves eating a bite-sized piece of chocolate every hour in a controlled setting, get them the Chococlock. The clock releases a piece of chocolate once an hour. Grab the piece within its 30-second exposure to the outside world and the calories are all yours! If you miss your scheduled appointment with the chocolate, you'll have to wait another hour. Or press the cheat button that releases a piece on demand. Or just open a bag of chocolate candies. Bonus feature: the Chococlock also dispenses non-chocolate matter, like Skittles, or Advil! [via Gizmodo]
Previously: Wake N' Bacon Alarm Clock: The Best Sleep-Ending Device Ever
Give your drinks more of a, uh, prehistoric touch with these "Fossiliced" dinosaur ice cube trays. What's next, bugs-trapped-in-amber ice cubes? (Or is that just bugs trapped in ice? Eww...) [via Boing Boing]
The late cartoonist Rube Goldberg, known for his drawings of absurdly complex devices that perform otherwise simple tasks, inspired this cocktail-mixing machine, which allows a seedless cucumber to travel through a matrix of cups until finally sliced and ready to garnish a vodka lemonade. You could probably fix the same drink—with just your hands—in about a minute, but why would you ever do that? The viewing experience is all the more enjoyable with polka music playing at the end.
According to Fast Company, Americans spent $15 billion on bottled water last year, which is more than we spent on "iPods or movie tickets." From corporate buffet lunches to health club vending machines, restaurants, and home refrigerators, bottled waters such as Poland Spring, Evian, and Perrier account for a huge percentage of what we drink every day. But how healthy is bottled water, for us and for the environment?
Not very, according to many experts. All drinking water, from fancy Italian Lurisia to plain old Brooklyn tap, has to meet the same standards for consumption. Bottled water is more or less an appeal to vanity. We buy it because it makes us feel fit, virtuous, and hip, when in fact it is no more beneficial than what comes from the kitchen sink, in addition to being more harmful to the earth. Consider how much fuel is used to transport bottled water around the world—according to Fast Company, in the United States alone it's a weekly equivalent of 37,800 18-wheelers delivering nothing but water. Add to that all the plastic and glass bottles, and you've got a whole lot of wasted energy.
Remember the scene in Hook when Rufio's bangarang fighting words inspired an all-out food fight brawl in Never-Never-Land? Too bad the Lost Boys didn't have this state-of-the-art Zing! catapult spoon for optimal launching of pretend food. The built-in spring means less spoon deaths by way of breaking at the utensil's neck. [via Boing Boing Gadgets]
I have a friend with a fetish for mini things. Travel-sized toothpaste, those midget ketchup bottles at upscale restaurants, adorable jam jars at high tea. She really needs to know about this $155 "Handspresso," as does the mini things fetishist in you. Like a bike, it uses the "pump air" method to generate pressure, eliminating electricity altogether.
Whaddaya think? Any use for a gadget like this in your morning routine?
Photograph taken by Melissa Hom, from Grub Street
Now there's no excuse for finding cartilage in your warm peekytoe crab cake with shaved cauliflower at Le Bernardin. They use an ultraviolet light that distinguishes crabmeat from cartilage (the cartilage appears a much brighter white), which executive chef Eric Ripert discovered last year after seeing it on a French TV program.
Related
The 50 Best Restaurants in the World, per S. Pellegrino
Eric Ripert's New Website
In Videos: Anthony Bourdain Interviews Eric Ripert
I acquired a Nuscüp (pronounced: noo-skoop) adjustable measuring cup last year out of curiosity rather than need. I already had an adjustable measuring cup—the Metric Wonder Cup—with which I was perfectly content, but thinking it might make for a worthwhile write-up here on Serious Eats, I scarfed up the last Nuscüp in stock at the local Sur La Table—a boxless floor model.
My first experience with it was one of utter disappointment. As soon as I got home, I ran to the sink to measure out some tap water; the water slipped right past the rubber gasket (around the edge of the cup’s adjustable bottom) and into the body of the cup. I took the Nuscüp apart (it is constructed of two interlocking pieces for easy cleaning), washed it, reassembled it, tried to measure water again, and failed. I wasn’t sure if it was just a useless, poorly designed gadget or if the cup had been damaged during its life as a floor model. Mildly disgusted either way, I threw the cup in my gadget drawer where it stayed until recently, when I was packing up for our kitchen renovation.
This internet-compatible coffee-maker appears to have some vulnerabilities to hacking. As posted on the Security Focus website:
Fun things you can do with a Jura coffee maker:
1. Change the preset coffee settings (make weak or strong coffee)
2. Change the amount of water per cup (say 300ml for a short black) and make a puddle
3. Break it by engineering settings that are not compatible (and making it require a service)The connectivity kit uses the connectivity of the PC it is running on to connect the coffee machine to the internet. This allows a remote coffee machine "engineer" to diagnose any problems and to remotely do a preliminary service.
Best yet, the software allows a remote attacker to gain access to the Windows XP system it is running on at the level of the user.
Compromise by Coffee.
I don't know, kids. Old Mr. Coffee might be scratching his head when it comes to this newfangled internets, but at least he's not going to hack my computer. I don't know why you'd want an web-accessible coffee-maker anyway.
Equipped with little more than a hibachi grill and an improvised chimney (a rusty old bottomless chicken-feed bucket that has been a part of his life for at least as long as I have), my father has expertly rendered some of the most delicious, perfectly cooked steaks of my life. On the other end of the spectrum, he’s also been known to make phone calls to the 800-number on the back of a frozen fish stick box to inquire whether or not said fish sticks could be microwaved rather than baked and how to do so.
Cooking can be uncertain ground with dads, but eating and gadgetry rarely are. So, gifted chef or Chef Boyardee, here’s a spectrum of gadgets and gizmos to satisfy all sorts of chow-loving pops.
If Dad’s a lover of trivia and does anything that might require the use of a measuring cup, the Equal Measure might be for him. Whether he’s mixing up marinades or cement, he’ll no doubt delight in discovering that one cup is only a smidge less than the volume of “water in a cumulus cloud the size of a bus” and lots of other interesting volumetric facts. $12.99, from ThinkGeek
No, someone did not sneak an iPhone into the pile of strawberries next to the fondue pot. That's because no one wants his iPhone to be eaten—which makes Homade's chocolate bar-inspired Chococase iPhone protector seem like a somewhat dangerous idea. If it were my $400 gadget extraordinaire, I would rather decrease the chances that someone might try to take a bite out of it. Besides, brown rubber kind of ruins the high-tech appeal. Still, I guess it is sort of cool looking. Just keep it away from anyone who looks hungry and nearsighted. [via Boing Boing Gadgets]
When I look at this motorized, scooter-based beer cooler, you know what I see? I see a marauding gang of 12 to 15 frat boys, on spring break, riding from hotel to motel to pool to beach.
That's not a slam on frat boys. You see, the next logical and ridiculously glorious extension of this "14 M.P.H. beer cooler" is that you'd get together with your buddies and form a 14 M.P.H. beer cooler biker gang. Fraternity brothers already have the legendary party skills; they're notorious for pranks; they're in college, so they've got the time; and they could use house funds to equip themselves.
A 500-watt motor drives the cooler, which can hold up to 24 twelve-ounce cans and eight pounds of ice, for a range of 15 miles on a charge. Scooler supports up to 300 pounds. $499.95, from Hammacher Schlemmer [via Restaurant Girl]
The OctoDog is a zany little plastic contraption that converts ordinary everyday hot dogs into octopus-lookin' works of ... edible art? Blogger Cia_B recently got her hands on one and puts it to the test here. I especially like the photo she took (above), comparing an octofied wiener to the real thing. Brilliant. OctoDog, $16.95 plus shipping, from OctoDog.net
For most of us, Memorial Day weekend marks the launch of the outdoor dining season, marshalling in a summer of picnics, barbecues, and pool and beach parties. As I find the standard gear marketed specifically for such occasions (folding picnic tables, special baskets and packs for tableware and flatware, enormous tong/spatula/fork sets, etc.) to be flimsy, fussy and/or cumbersome, I turn to camping suppliers when I’m looking for tools to get my outdoor eat on. There I tend to find equipment that is robust enough to withstand the elements and a good bit of jostling, lightweight and compact enough to be easily transported on foot, and just plain sensible for outdoor/remote usage.
Now, I appreciate the simplicity necessitated by al fresco dining—unfussy meats and vegetables grilled to order or foods prepared in advance and served out of coolers—all of it eaten off of plastic or disposable plates. I’m good with all of that, but I do appreciate my gadgets, and in the heat of summer, especially in areas removed from ready access to such creature comforts as running water and electricity, I can think of nothing quite so satisfyingly decadent as a slushy beverage. Enter my latest camp-supply find: the Coleman portable blender.
There are cases to protect whole bananas from turning into bruised, mush-filled bags, but what about when you want to just protect the cut end of half of a banana? The NANA Saver™ Banana Holder is designed to grip onto the exposed end of your half-eaten banana and keep it fresher for longer by reducing its exposure to air. And since it's shaped like the missing half, It's kind of like a prosthetic for your banana. Make your banana feel whole again! [via The Presurfer]
Banana Cupcakes: Buttercream vs. Cream Cheese?
Photo of the Day: Banana Wall
Forbidden Love of Hot Dog & Banana
As author of The Elements of Cooking, Michael Ruhlman has inspired others to really think about what they keep in their kitchens. Now he lists his own must-have gadgets, after venting about some real crap that he's got no use for:
I’m not the first to suggest that a tool that has only a single use is just as useful in the garbage as it is in your drawer. A mango slicer, please. An egg separater—Jesus, an egg separator! We are born with the perfect egg separators, right at the end of our arms!
His fave tools? Among others, a big knife, a little knife, and "the most important tool in the kitchen: kosher salt."
Related
What's Your Favorite Kitchen Tool?
Tools Kept for Once-a-Year Dishes: In Praise of Unitaskers
If you're into gadgets and looking to make your own baby purees, Williams-Sonoma is now selling the Beaba Babycook.
Pronounced "Bay-OBB-uh," the device has been popular for several years in Europe and is now available in the US. There's a video on the Williams-Sonoma site showing how it works. It's basically a mini-chopper than can steam food before you puree it. The industrial design is tops—with chubby curves and lime-green trim, it looks like a dollhouse accessory, albeit with a sharp blade.
If only the late 1980s flick was actually about a courageous electronic kitchen tool with a microwave Siamese twin! Now, that would have been an animated adventure. Twenty years later, we now have a LTM9000 toaster-microwave duo which combines two food heaters that have clearly been flirting from across the countertop. One night, when the kitchen lights were dimmed and nobody was watching, they quit the winky faces and went for it. The married life seems to be treating them well, and could open a whole new world for multi-tasking kitchen appliances. A Cuisinart mixer-cum-pepper grinder? Or lemon zester that opens cans? [Via OhGizmo!]
Related
Behold the Micro-Microwave
Battle of the High-Tech Toasters
How to Make Thin Egg Sheets in Your Microwave
Driving is already frustrating enough: $4/gallon gas, collapsing bridges, the screaming kids in the back. The last thing humanity needs is the difficulty in simply enjoying french fries from behind the wheel... and failing. It's only inevitable that errant fries will spread their grease and salt all over your car's interior. There are containers for gum, chips, and nuts that fit in a cup holder, but the standard french fry container just won't fit.
However, thanks to Improvements, purveyor of "Quick and Clever Problem-Solvers," you can get a French Fry Holder for your car! Kind of. It's sold out right now, but if it weren't, you too could indulge in the convenience of a container whose no-slip rubberized base fits into your standard cup holder and holds one order of fries. There's even a clip-on ketchup cup for easy dipping! And if you're not eating fries, you can use it to hold other snacks. With so many uses, you can't afford not to have one.
Related
The Col-Pop, an All-in-One Chicken Nugget and Soda Cup
I Am Tired of Spreading Cream Cheese on a Bagel for Myself
If you're highly particular about the quality of your toast, check out Cool Hunting's Toaster Challenge where they rate four kinds of toasters: Alessi SG68, Viking VT200, Breville Smart Toaster BTA820XL and Krups TT6190. The winner was the Breville Smart Toaster, a toaster so advanced that it's not even on the market yet. When it does, you'll have access to a toaster that features "an LED panel that counts down and also employs a robotic function that slowly submerges the bread into the glowing coils and raises it again after an abbreviated two minutes (at the medium setting) of toasting." Read all the toaster reviews at Cool Hunting.
Previously:
In Videos: My Incredibly Cool Toaster
Turbo Toaster Browns Bread in 50 Seconds
Toaster-Shaped Phone
First there was the hamburger phone from Juno and then the sandwich phone. Now comes the toast phone. This concept from Brazilian design student Renata Quintela comes with two bread phones and a toaster charger. [via Gizmodo]
In the future, there will be no need to reach across the table for your salt and pepper; just ask your dining companions to shoot it right onto your food with the spice gun! [via bb gadgets]
How many times have you been out camping and all you wanted was the power to make a pitcher of frozen drinks in about 30 seconds? We've all been there. Coleman has come to the rescue with their Rechargeable Portable Blender, perfect for all those times you're nowhere near an electrical outlet and you just really need to blend something. [via bb gadgets]
With their gift guides my cohorts have already supplied you with a bounty of great ideas for everyone from the cook to the baker to the cocktail maker, but what about those Serious Eaters left on your gift list who have everything already? Nobody wants to get somebody a duplicate, and gift cards just aren't much fun to give. But, while your cousin the cook may have a few spatulas in his kitchen, does he have a lime green one with a mouth that hangs on a tongue hook? And your sister-in-law with the amazing set of vintage ceramic tableware in some pattern with a name you can never remember, though it doesn't matter because all the circulating pieces cost more than your net worth? Surely she already has salt-and-pepper shakers, but how could she turn away a pair of white birdy-foot salt-and-pepper shakers?
With the stragglers left on your list in mind, I've assembled a merry band of misfits that are sure to find a place on the table or in the kitchen of the Serious Eater who has everything. (Prices do not include shipping unless otherwise noted.)
A visitor from the future has landed on my refrigerator door. Its name is SmartShopper. It's an electronic shopping list, and catalogs like Sur La Table and The Sharper Image are pushing it this holiday season. And if your idea of fun is getting into a screaming fight with your fridge, I highly recommend you pick one up.
SmartShopper is about the size of a Big Grab of chips and weighs a pound. It's solidly built, takes four AAs, and sticks firmly to our refrigerator. It has a built-in thermal printer. And it's easy to use. Just press the blue "Record" button and say what you want to add to your list. SmartShopper will present you with its three best interpretations of what you said. For example, earlier today I pressed the button and confidently intoned, "Yogurt." SmartShopper replied:
I came to Dubai full of excitement. I knew that it was the new capitol of glitzy luxury and indulgence, but I had gleaned from various sources that the city's souks (markets) were vibrant crossroads, redolent with the character of old Arabia, where one could procure just about anything.
I was certain I would find all sorts of interesting and unfamiliar regional bits and pieces for kitchen and table. Unfortunately, after visiting nearly every souk on the Dubai map and all the narrow shop-lined streets in between, aside from a few chintzy mass-produced Arabian-coffee pots, I found little exceeding the inventory of any Chinatown or flea market back home.
Then, just as I was reaching my threshold for oppressive heat and aggressive sales tactics, I came upon a row of chubby stainless steel sentinels (above). Were they juicers? Blenders? Novel rice steamers? I snapped a quick photo and tentatively moved on, hoping to unravel the mystery without inviting the attention of vendor hungry for a sale.
Brendan I. Koerner, who writes "The Goods," an underappreciated but often hilarious column in the Sunday New York Times business section, says that Bluw, a London design firm, has finally come up with a cheap, space-saving alternative to the wine rack. It's called the Wedge. And according to Koerner, it actually works:
...Though the package copy recommends that each two-piece set be used to hold a maximum of six wine bottles, I was able to create a very stable 10-bottle pyramid.
Even after downing several glasses of pinot noir, in order to affect a partygoer’s clumsiness, my jostlings of the pyramid caused almost no discernible movement.
The Wedge, $9.95 a pair, at Firebox.com
Today we add yet another new voice to the Serious Eats mix—Joe Campanale. Joe will be joining us on Fridays to touch on topics from the world of wine. Cheers! —The Serious Eats Team
By Joe Campanale | Is there anything the iPhone can’t do? Well the whole winemaking thing is up in the air. But you can now make wine from your home computer using a new invention called the WinePod ($3,500). Just dump in (er, carefully place) 15 gallons of grapes (about seventy-five 750ml bottles), and use the interactive software to control the whole process, from pressing to aging.
But make sure you don’t use Thompson seedless or Concord grapes. These are part of an American vine variety known as Vitis labrusca and have a distinctly foxy taste that exists somewhere between Welch’s grape juice and an off-vintage Manischewitz. Instead, hunt down your favorite Vitis vinifera variety such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer, or Kadarka, then plug in your WinePod and wait a year to enjoy your Main Street Cuvee!
I'm a big fan of Brendan Koerner's "The Goods" column in the New York Times Sunday business section. Yesterday he wrote about a newfangled outdoor cooker, the Orion. Here's how he described it: "a cylindrical, stainless steel gadget that resembles something out of the Apollo space program. Powered by charcoal, the Orion envelops meats in waves of hot air, also known as convection currents."
According to its inventor, Christian Fitzgerald, "This not only eliminates the need for turning but also preserves juiciness and reduces cooking times. He estimates, for example, that the Orion can cook a 20-pound turkey in two and a half hours, and six racks of baby back ribs in 75 minutes."
Here's my question: Does the Orion make anything crisp on the outside? I, for one, need that crisp, crusty exterior on my meat.
This peanut butter mixer
I've long been a fan of Regina Schrambling's Gastropoda, which is refreshingly acidic when many food blogs are nothing but saccharine, so I got an extra big kick out of reading what is essentially a paean to her newly-purchased immersion blender in the LA Times. She cops to immediately "going as crazy as a Martha Stewart groupie who has just discovered the glue gun"—she "[whips] through pesto, tapenade, asparagus soup, red pepper purée and hummus, while also grinding walnuts into flour and converting a hard roll into fluffy bread crumbs" in a mere forty-five minutes after ripping her blender out of its box!
Schrambling points out that you can easily drop a few hundred dollars on blenders graded for use in professional kitchens, but why bother when she's so clearly happy with her new KitchenAid KHB100, which goes for $42.99 (after a $5 rebate) on Amazon? I think I know what my next kitchen equipment purchase is going to be.
I can't decide whether this mushroom kitchen timer is so cute it's hideous or so hideous it's cute, so I'm just going to say that it's 3"x3.5", from Japan (if you hadn't already guessed), $12 at Fred Flare, and you should buy it if it makes you happy.
[via Apartment Therapy]
Wired's Super Bowl Party Gadgets roundup starts out reasonably with a $45 Black and Decker food processor for guacamole, and immediately escalates to the $2500 grill with a sound system you see at left. I don't have to try too hard to justify that—it's a fair price, if you're serious about grilling and do a LOT of it, and anyway gadget roundups have to have at least one big ticket item—but then a few items later comes the $200 garbage can, notable for the infrared sensor that opens the lid without you ever having to touch anything. Sorry, but that's just obscene.
I'm a gadget minimalist, but the following kitchen tools culled off the Well Fed Network's various sites are kind of intriguing:
--The Food Loop, a kind of reusable kitchen string (for tying up joints of meat, piles of stockpot veg, etc.)
--The OXO Angled Measuring Cup, so that you don't have to bend in half when you're pouring out milk or oil.
This one, on the other hand, is just stupid: Spepper, a salt-and-pepper mix.
But I LOVE these toasters by the Sarut group!
Their Nemo whisk and graters are cute too, although they look less well designed.
Okay, I pointed to these guys already but they keep giving and giving, I can't resist. Check out these (apparently discontinued, sadly) sushi USB drives, strawberry milk sausage, and sushi-making robot.
This "head tired sexy knee pillow" has NOTHING to do with food but it may be my favorite thing on the site.
In its default setting, the Microwave Vase looks like nothing more than a regular vase; once food is placed inside and the top knob is adjusted for time, then it becomes an actual microwave, cooking your food in a heartbeat. When the food is finished, the little green leaf on top lights up to let you know that your meal is ready. Wasn't this an accessory in the The Sims?
Microwave Vase [Yanko Design]
Not yet available in the U.S., this device takes the Egg Muffin maker concept to the next level with the addition of a coffee maker.
Here's an an ingenious way to make a complete breakfast at home without having to inundate your kitchen with single-use appliances. This new product from Japanese company Chuo Sangyo lets you make coffee, eggs, and toast all in one breath. It only takes 10 minutes and one outlet. Amazing.
One Machine Makes Toast, Eggs, and Coffee [TokyoMango]
Every weekday between now and December 22, I'm going to do a food enthusiast gift idea. There will be ideas for all gift-giving budgets, so if you find yourself stuck for a present, and the myriad lists other people have created can't help, you might spy something here. Today we begin with a Wine Knot from Modern furniture purveyor Design Within Reach. An "ingenious interplay of shape and color," Wine Knot holds six liter wine bottles, with space in the center for a magnum. This is a wine holder for display, not cellaring. $98 from www.dwr.com.
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