Cooking

MacBook Air in the kitchen: It slices, it dices!

You've looked at the edge of your MacBook Air and thought, "Dang, that's super slim." A man who writes for a Japanese blog called Mochrom looked at his MacBook Air and thought, "Dang, I can cut vegetables with that."

And so he did. Mochrom gives a step-by-step guide to prepping a meal with a MacBook Air in place of a kitchen knife. You can check out Google's attempt at a translation. He started with mushrooms, known to many chefs as an easy first vegetable for testing out your knife skills.

The MacBook handled the 'shrooms with ease. Emboldened, our culinary hero also whacked through a cabbage and shaved a carrot. Getting a good cut on the cabbage required the more extreme step of opening up the MacBook Air to get a thinner edge.

He had no fear in rubbing raw shrimp all over his laptop during the de-veining process. Scallops quickly surrendered to its chopping prowess.

Here's hoping it got a good cleaning before being pressed back into service as an actual laptop.

As it turns out, there are some things a MacBook Air will not cut through. A real kitchen knife was required for carrots and raw bacon. At least he had the good sense not to stir the stir-fry with the laptop.… Read more

The grill that thinks like a flowerpot

Most people like to grill; there is something for everybody. Vegetarians can enjoy a wide variety of dishes made over an open flame. For those who limit their diets to lighter animal proteins, fish and chicken are no strangers to the grill. And of course, for the carnivore nothing beats a well-prepared, fire-licked steak. In short, fire makes things taste good no matter what you prefer. But sometimes the available area doesn't want to participate.

The BBQ Bruce Handrail Grill makes space limitations a concern no longer. The rectangular grill mounts directly on a railing and adds a space-efficient … Read more

Season to taste with one hand

Cooking requires some degree of agility. The balancing act that is the process of making dinner is one that requires practice, skill, and, often, a free hand. After the groceries have toppled from our arms and onto the countertop, after the prep work has all been done, after the pots and pans have been properly heated, then the cooking starts--and we find that hands that were just so busy, are still so busy. So we stir, saute, flip, and fold and find ourselves looking forward to when it's time to eat, not only because we're hungry, but because … Read more

Mini Donut Factory makes edible angel halos

Dear Krispy, I'm breaking up with you. Thanks to the new Automatic Mini Donut Factory, there is no longer any reason to venture out into the world.

The $179.99 doughnut maker from Nostalgia Electrics sits on your kitchen counter and magically transforms raw doughnut batter into little halos of sin. All the flipping and frying is handled automatically, with your treats popping out at the far end of the machine.

Safety windows let you observe the action without accidentally frying your fingers. It even has a component called the "donut slide."… Read more

Double-decker barbecue cone

There is never enough room on the grill. Naturally, the easiest way to solve this issue is to purchase a bigger grill. That doesn't always work out though, considering that sometimes space limitations trump having room for that extra burger or hot dog. As mankind has so often decided to do in these situations, often the best course of action is to look up for expanding. Even if only by a few inches.

The Bodum Fyrkat Cone is a charcoal grill with a distinctive design. Wider at the top than at the bottom, the conical construction of the grill … Read more

Dual-temperature thermometer aims for precision

Precision in the kitchen is something that most of us have learned to live without. Just think about how many recipes call for an oven that is preheated to 350 degrees. In fact, old cookbooks would often simply recommend temperatures with terms like "slow," "moderate," or "hot." Just cook what you need to cook at a temperature that is close enough, and more often than not, it would turn out just fine. These being modern times, and home cooks taking on more and more challenges increasingly more sophisticated in nature, a little precision in … Read more

Fully Loaded Burger Stuffer handles the hard work

You need more kitchen gadgets. You can never have enough zesters, colanders, and cake molds. You might as well expand your horizons to include a gadget that gets in on the popular burger stuffing trend, the new Fully Loaded Burger Stuffer from Headchefs.

In case you've been skipping "Man v. Food" and don't subscribe to the Food Network, you may have overlooked the burger stuffing mania that has been sweeping the nation. As you would expect, it involves cramming items that would normally go on top into the innards of the burger patty.

This is easier said than done. Hand-forming a patty around contents like blue cheese, roasted red peppers, or chile (that's New Mexico chile with an "e"), can be challenging and counter to the laws of physics.… Read more

Sit down and grill a while

Gathering around the outdoor grill is a time-honored tradition that occurs during warm-weather (and sometimes not-so-warm) months. As with every tradition, certain customs are upheld--whether intentional or not. Most grill sessions look remarkably similar: guests standing around a grill edging for position or trenched into lawn chairs that inhibit access to the grill surface.

Not all stationary-friendly grills are of the low-to-the-ground variety. A comfortable variation on the theme is the Snow Peak Garden Dining Table. Offering seating for four, the picnic table combines an outdoor grill directly into its structure. It features a center cutout (additional leafs can be … Read more

Electrolux Design Lab announces semifinalists

Food on the go is an essential part of modern life. It's a wonder it took as long as it did for the food truck thing to catch on, but the important thing is, it did. Good food no longer has to be subject to long periods of idleness. If you're wondering what might be the next big thing concerning mobility, you are not alone. Electrolux, with its 2011 Design Lab exhibition, has just released the 25 semi-finalists for the competition. The theme is "Intelligent Mobility." Here are a few examples of the concepts that perhaps … Read more

A measuring cup for the stovetop

Cooking requires a certain amount of patience. When we are first learning to cook we have to navigate by trial and error, remembering not to get too discouraged when it is more error than anything else. Eventually, our patience gets rewarded and more and more successful creations are the result. Just because of a few successes, that doesn't mean we should ignore the continued need for patience--but cutting a few corners doesn't hurt.

Kitchens tend to be frenetic, and finding a shortcut that works can be quite a benefit. When it comes to preparing ingredients and stovetop cooking, … Read more