Lighting a fire in your barbecue pit or pot belly stove is not always a simple task; sometimes that wood just will not ignite no matter how much you baby it along. For all of you who’ve ever sprayed a pile of hardwood with lighter fluid in frustrated defeat, I give you the Bison Airlighter — your own personal flamethrower.
If the idea of bringing home bulk beans, lentils, rice, and loose grains causes you to get nervous because you don’t want to figure out cooking measurements, but you know you need to integrate these healthy items into your diet more, then The Made might just be a Kickstart project that you should back.
I noticed the Towlhub, a 3-in-one paper towel holder while browsing SkyMall on the flight back from the happiest place on earth. It features a 4-port USB power , paper towel dispenser, and a hidden wine stopper (which also holds the paper towels); this MacGyver-ish device will set you back $49 – add Bluetooth speakers for a total of $79.
If you like your whiskey a bit chilled, but hate the way ice cubes melt and dilute the sweet elixir, then you will want to check out Balls of Steel. These whiskey drink chillers not only reduce the temperature of your drink without diluting it, but they also help battle testicular cancer.
Let me preface this with a well-known fact: I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Keurig. With that said, my current Keurig could be my last one, since Green Mountain is souring my morning cup with a little Digital Rights Management in their Keurig 2.0 machine coming this fall. This idea is so bad that I will NOT be buying it.
I recently built a home bar; between glass wear, jiggers, shakers and openers, there are tons of gadgets I could fill my drawers with, but a recent Kickstarter campaign has introduced an item I have never seen. Brew Cutlery combines stainless steel eating utensils with a bottle opener. A $20 Kickstarter contribution will let you eat, drink and be merry!
Want to make your can of Bud stand out during a party? Want to lay claim to your Diet Coke when vacationing with others? If you answered yes, the $8 CanStamp is for you. Featuring statements like “mine”, “in use” and “fuel” it is a fun and kinda practical way to personalize your can. Check it out.
The Blend and Cook Soupmaker by Cuisinart lets kitchen culinarians make hot soup on a chilly day, then totally switch to frozen mixed drinks in the summertime with this flexible right in the glass blender jar. The black finish design looks great and helps with stains, while other advantages include BPA-free materials and the familiar spill lip on the base.
When’s the last time you heard of a truly innovative gas grill? Lynx has just announced a concept that will bring the outdoor kitchen into the modern age. Using smartphone integration and voice commands, Lynx’s Smart Grill can automatically cook your food using pre-programmed recipes created by master grillers. Read more about it at Lynx’s website.
Canning is one of those things that always sounded so good, but the actual process intimidated me terribly. It’s why I was so excited to jump on the chance to review the FreshTech Canning System. Could this all in one device provide all of the benefits of canning with none of the headaches? Read on to find out!
Packing your own lunch is often a cheaper and healthier alternative to eating out, so brown-bagging it is becoming even more popular among frugal workers. But think of all the disposable snack bags you’ve been paying for and contributing to the landfill. Fortunately, here comes RUSSBE Reusable Snack and Sandwich Bags to the rescue!
I debated and debated (and debated!) about whether or not I should back the “World’s first roast-grind-brew coffee machine” by Bonavarde Coffee Changers. In the end, even though it seemed unlikely and possibly too good to be true, and even though there were plenty of good reasons not to,”but what if it works?” won out, and I backed. Bonaverde more than met their initial goal of $135,000; they smashed it with over $681K in backing money, and they added several stretch goals along the way. This may turn out to be a very expensive piece of junk, or it might…
I love to cook. I store most of my recipes in Evernote, so when making unfamiliar dishes I always need access to a smart device. Usually I’ll walk back and forth between the kitchen countertop and dining room table where my laptop sits, checking ingredients as I work. That’s all changed since I got the Astak Neos Android Tablet.
Do you score your wieners before grilling them? I didn’t even realize that doing so was a “thing”, but it helps your dogs cook evenly while creating nooks that keep your garnishes from sliding off your frank and onto your shirt. That’s kind of cool, right? And it’s easy to do with the Cyclone Spiral Hotdog Slicer, $11.99 from Quirky.
Dan and I both love our Keurig systems. I enjoyed my original for 3 years, but it started to fail, so I replaced it with the K75 Platinum Brewing System. I feel safe in saying that I have replaced it with a device that is better in every way; the K75 is the K-cup lovers dream machine.
Knives beware! Thanks to the Knork you can now set the table with just one utensil. The Knork is a special fork whose curved side isn’t sharp like a knife but, thanks to a specific curve built into its design, will cut straight through most foods. Will a Knork let you retire the rest of your cutlery? Check it out. via theKitchn
These may look like swords designed for a really small samurai, but they are actually meant for the food ninja in your life. And while they are quirky, they are also quite practical. This stylish set contains four knives — bread, chef’s meat carver, utility, and paring; you’ll also get sheaves for each and this cool display stand. Just $62 here. via Werd
When I was a wee preschooler, my morning TV schedule ran from Sesame Street to Mr. Rogers, and then to Julia Child’s cooking show, The French Chef, which helped plant the seed that influenced my interest in cooking. Why do I mention this bit of minutiae? Well, it so happens that today is famed chef Julia Child’s 101st birthday, and to celebrate, Random House Digital, Inc. slashed the price of their iOS app Mastering the Art of French Cooking: Selected Recipes from $4.99 to $1.99 from August 15 through August 18! Based on Child’s acclaimed book Mastering the Art of…
As a food and drink writer, I get the opportunity to try out a lot of gadgets that purport to make my drinking life easier. Not that I don’t appreciate them, but the drawers of my liquor cabinet are full of things to cool my drinks, tools to aerate and decant wine, strainers, bottle stoppers, collars that fit around bottlenecks to prevent dripping and strainers to filter out the sediment in aged wines. It’s frankly getting to be a bit of a mess in there, and I usually just keep the drawer shut. So I was quite excited to hear…
Surely one of the best known images representing the simple pleasures of childhood must be dipping cookies in milk. My sister and her friends were avid practitioners of the art, but I never took a shining to the practice myself. The whole dipping one’s cookie and often fingers into milk just seemed messy and uncivilized, just too reminiscent of early teething toddlers sticking formerly useful household objects into their gooey, slavering maws. The horror! Thankfully, the march of civilization continues, and with that march has emerged the Dipr, the first utensil specifically designed to allow for tidy dipping, eating and enjoying…
That question was, of course, rhetorical. Of COURSE your beer (or other bottled beverage) deserves a bottle opener as simple and useful as the Hermetus Bottle Opener and Resealer that Kaufman Mercantile sent me to check out. Made in Germany, the Hermetus Bottle Opener and Resealer is a metal bottle opener that easily opens any bottle, but then it is also able to glide over the top and make a tight seal that helps keep beers from going flat or spilling. Why would you need such a device? Simple… This IPA is not only strong but it is huge. And…