Category: Accessories

Three times the timer

Maverick Professional Digital 3-Line Timer and Clock, TM-03

It’s winter, and winter spells delicious. The cold weather encourages us to stay inside to cook rather than hunt down food in the wilds of our shopping centers. Maybe that’s why holiday season comes at the end of the year. Either way, there’s going to be a whole lot of cookin’ going on.

Whether you’re cooking for friends, family or yourself, you are going to need keep an eye on what’s on the stove. Often, this means a kitchen timer. The Maverick Professional Digital 3-Line Timer and Clock keeps track of up to three events at once. Most stovetops have four burners, so if you’re cooking for a crowd, I guess someone will just have to stand guard on the fourth burner. That is, unless you can think of a way to avoid Aunt Sally’s Boiled Green Bean Surprise this year.

Water water everywhere, with filtered drops to drink

The Self Filtering Water Bottle from Hammacher Schlemmer.

Sure, we all know that plastic water bottles are bad for the environment, and are pretty easy to phase out of our daily routines. All it takes is a getting some sort of reusable water bottle, and those are certainly plentiful. Water may indeed be everywhere, but when out in the wild there is usually not a filtered drop to drink. Until now.

The Self Filtering Water Bottle from Hammacher Schlemmer is a stainless-steel water bottle that comes complete with an integrated filter. Able to treat up to 100 gallons of water before replacing, the water bottle/filter combination provides the equivalent of 757 1/2-liter plastic bottles. Using adsorption, chemical bonding, and 1/500-millimeter perforations to remove 99.99% of microbes, the water bottle is a convenient accessory for modern life, or even as a means to ensure access to potable water when out on the hiking trail—you know, out in the environment we’re all trying save.

Finally, a chance for Bread People to lead a normal life

Swissmar Bamboo Crumb Catching Board w/Bread Knife

It goes without saying that Bread People eat a lot of bread. Which also goes to say, they have a lot of crumbs in their homes. As all this bread-eating usually outpaces bread-cleaning, all those crumbs pile up. Just like you don’t clean the crumb tray out of your toaster after every use, Bread People don’t clean away the crumbs after slicing into a loaf; it’s just going to get all crumby again at the next meal. I know all this, because I am a Bread Person.

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Your $5.99 down the drain

Farberware Pro Tuna Press

I totally understand the rationale for the Farberware Pro Tuna Press to exist. A can of tuna is filled with oil or water; somehow that liquid needs to be removed. Of course, a tuna press! The only question that remains is how to remove the lid from the can of tuna when it drops down into the can. I guess by pressing down on it… that would then press out the water. Oh. Hmm…still, this useless kitchen gadget is a nice green color, isn’t it? I wonder what the semi-pro version looks like.

Work for your nuts

Nutcracker by Blomus

You know who has to work for nutmeat? Squirrels, that’s who. They run around all day and pick up nuts, carrying them in their cheeks. That deserves a reward much more than a walnut (or whatever they eat) can provide. Okay sure, survival may be reward enough on its own, but that’s for squirrels, you are not a squirrel.

However, if you sympathize with the eating and collecting habits of furry rodentia, you too can work for your nuts. The Nutcracker by Blomus may look like a thumbscrew, but it is a torture device of a different nature. Holiday season may commonly feature bowls of mixed nuts everywhere, but it’s going to take you until January to get through them if you crack them one-by-one. Good thing survival doesn’t depend on mixed nuts. (And the fact that the fridge is filled with leftover turkey doesn’t hurt.)