Football season is upon us. That means months of football food lie ahead. As fall is ushered in by the kicking of an oblong ball, millions of cheering fans will be applauding the spread. No, not that kind of spread, the food spread. But no matter if the gathering is in the parking lot of the stadium or at a football party down the street, there needs to be a way to get the goods to the game.

A winning recipe for five-alarm chili just isn't worth it if it can't be shared among friends (or unleashed upon … Read more

Salad dressing, being the condiment that changes a bunch of lettuce and vegetables into an actual salad, has a pretty high importance in salad hierarchy. Of course, this is not surprising to anyone who has ever become lost in the condiment aisle at the supermarket. However, for all those bottles that line the shelves, all too often that massive selection does not lead to the one you want. Luckily, it is easy to make your own.

The Zing Anything Salad Zinger ($23.95) is a simple-to-use salad contraption that may end up rivaling the salad spinner for salad importance. Intuitive … Read more

The Breville BRC600XL Risotto Plus Rice and Risotto Maker is an automatic rice maker that does more than just make rice. An elegant interface offers user easy operation via a set of no-nonsense buttons. The dedicated cooking functions include settings for: risotto, saute, steam, and slow cook as well as the ever-popular automatic rice-making mode.

The multi-cooker is designed for easy automatic operation, but with the inclusion of so many cooking modes, versatility on the countertop is a big feature. The saute function not only provides an easy way to build flavor by browning ingredients before fully cooking, but it … Read more

Ever wondered what Neptune tastes like? Vintage Confections on Etsy has the answer. It comes in your choice of either strawberry or cotton candy.

A complete set of solar system lollipops costs $17.50. You get the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Yea for including Pluto! Sorry, Moon, you don't rate high enough to get your own sucker.… Read more

Say goodbye to burned cookies with the f/60 Lens Kitchen Timer. Resembling a typical kit zoom lens, this nifty contraption can keep time for up to 60 minutes.

Operation is easy. Simply twist on the knurled "zoom ring" of the lens and the ring of a bell will alert you when the countdown is complete. The device is fully mechanical and does not require batteries to run. … Read more

BERLIN--Fast forward 10 years and we'll all own fridges like the one shown above. Fast forward another 10 years and we'll all be working for the fridge shown above, slaving away in the ice mines to appease our chilly overlord.

Haier's semi-transparent concept fridge is one of the more exotic things on show at the IFA tech trade show here in Berlin. I've been hands-on with the "Minority Report"-esque technology, so read on for everything you need to know.

The first thing you'll notice is that front of the fridge has a large, dark screen through which you can -- if you squint -- make out your food. That's because this fridge has a semi-transparent display, meaning you can both see what's onscreen, and make out objects behind it. … Read more

Baking can be a furious endeavor. Throw a cook into a fully stocked kitchen with a set of measuring tools and anything can happen. That doesn't mean everything has to happen, though. Any chef could live without the spills and the messes that inevitably occur from trying to use something that was designed for another purpose. Worse yet is when a commonly used item gets in the way.

Baking scales, like any other piece of kitchen equipment, are only as useful as far as they can be used. Sounds simple enough, but all too often utility is lost due … Read more

Learning how to cook can be a frustrating experience. This should not be the case. Aside from an occasional overcooked steak, the process should be an enjoyable one. And considering that one gets to eat the results of one's labor, the aftermath isn't too bad either. (Unless that steak is really overdone.) Understanding that learning how to cook can be thought of as a game, a research team at the Tokyo Institute of Technology has created a cooking simulator designed to give novice cooks instantaneous feedback.

As a novel approach to culinary education, the system is composed of … Read more

Space is always a concern in the kitchen; it can also be an issue in the great outdoors. While that might not make much sense at first considering that the great outdoors is both great and outdoors, people who enjoy their time in nature tend not to want to get bogged down with stuff. But getting away from it all doesn't have to mean getting away from everything.

No matter if hiking or camping, everybody has to stop sometime to eat. And that means, cutting, slicing, and dicing. For those looking to trek beyond gorp, the Snow Peak Set M Chopping Board … Read more