Beyond The Kitchen Sink

Get over your fear of chopsticks with Choplery

If you tend to purposely overlook chopsticks and instead gravitate immediately towards the cutlery, Choplery can help. In this chopsticks meets Western-style utensil mash-up, the question of which to reach for is removed by combining both into one. Snapping apart like all good takeout chopsticks do, the hybrid flatware designed by Peter Pracilio serves to appeal to diners no matter where they are from. Now, Western diners who have not yet tamed the fearsome chopstick can stop stabbing at their sweet and sour pork and opt gracefully instead for the more familiar knife, fork and spoon set up.

Diving into candy coating

Candy is made in giant tumblers that coat nuts and other small ingredients in sugar. Just put in your ingredients and turn it on. Before you know it, you have a (great big) batch of candy. While most of us do not have the luxury of installing one of these people-sized machines in our home (or the need for that much candy), we can use the stand mixer to make some candy with this simple attachment.

The Sweet Coating Maker works with the KitchenAid stand mixer and is capable of producing 30 pounds of candy-coated sweetness per hour. The stainless-steel tumbler allows you to coat fruit, nuts, or other candy pieces in sugar or even chocolate and almond paste. With about a 16-inch diameter, the attachment is considerably smaller than its industrial cousins, making sure that it wonâ€™t take up too much room when not in useâ€”or tempt us to dive in and candy-coat ourselves.

***UPDATE***
The link above no longer works, so give this one a spin: De Buyer Sweet Coating System

Stem Gem claw game wins a strawberry every time

Using the Chef’n Stem Gem Strawberry Huller is like playing a skill crane that you win every time. There isnâ€™t even any skill necessary to win this claw game. The strawberry huller operates at the press of a button, expanding the grabber. Simply insert into the strawberry and twist to scoop out the stem and leaves. Easy! Of course, the best thing about this game is that instead of wining a shoddily made stuffed animal, you get a delicious ready-to-eat strawberryâ€¦ and then anotherâ€¦ and then anotherâ€¦

Kohler goes over the kitchen sink in Stages

You donâ€™t often come across a kitchen sink that comes packed with accessories, but that is exactly what you get with the new Kohler Stages sink designs. Available in either a 45-inch (K-3761, pictured above) or a 33-inch (K-3760, pictured below) configuration, the Kohler Stages Sinks integrate the cooking process into the product line by including accessories all designed to facilitate in the creation of the meal.

Continue reading Kohler goes over the kitchen sink in Stages

Party on the patio well into the night

Cooking up a feast in the backyard is a great way to spend an afternoon. So great in fact, that more often than not, grilling sessions extend beyond sundown. Luckily, we live in a modern society where a minor inconvenience such as the sun going down doesnâ€™t have to stop the party in its tracks, However, you will need some illumination to overcome Mother Natureâ€™s early bedtime.

The LED Patio Umbrella Light may be a rather unworldly looking light, but it is designed to keep us firmly planted in our backyards. The 4.25-inch diameter saucer slides easily on to standard umbrella poles. Powered by four AAA batteries, the umbrella light may have enough juice to keep the party going, but as far as any sudden fast directional changes are concerned, thatâ€™s entirely up to you.

Oil and vinegar one drop at a time

Sure, you could use an oil mister to dress up your greens, or even the old fashioned way of pouring (gasp!) a mixture over your salad, but I think thatâ€™s all a little too last millennium. In this scientific age we all need to embrace the era that we live in. If that includes salad dressing, then so be it. I am prepared to meet the future head on; now you can too.

The Pipette Oil & Vinegar set by Design House Stockholm intends to bring up to date the way that we store and serve our salad essentials. Doling out exact measurements drop by drop, you have full control over your salad. The pipette set, designed by Camilla Kropp, is the perfect serving solution for the precision cook (or budding molecular gastronomist) in all of us.