For you wired technogeeks who love to cook, Belling has just come out wth a new digital cookbook.  The Media Chef holds about 48 instructional cooking videos and can also be used as a calendar, a media player and a photo frame.  The 8 inch screen device also comes with a remote control.

So, if you have an extra $275 burning a hole in your pocket, this is the item to pick up!

Among the housewares big names like All Clad, Viking and Cuisinart and the exhibits with celebrity chef monikers plastered all over their booths is a small section set aside for the new inventions. The Inventors Corner is a place we always make sure we visit at this show to see who the next up and coming Kitchen Aid might be. This year we found two companies offering some interesting gadgets for the kitchen.

Garlic Gadgets

The first is a trio of garlic gadgets from Koopeh Designs (www.koopeh.com). They include the Garlic Chop, Garlic Keep and Garlic Peeler. If you use garlic a lot in your cooking you should check these products out. The Garlic Chop is a clever device that allows you to chop, crush, mince and shred garlic cloves with ease. Shaped like a garlic bulb, the Chop comes it two halves, each with a set of teeth. Place up to 4 cloves of garlic inside and twist the two halves to masticate the garlic as much or as little as you like. Koopeh Designs has even produced a video to show you how it’s done.

According to their web site, “The Garlic Keep is a storage device made of ceramic with holes on the bottom to keep the garlic fresh”. The Keep, cleverly enough looks like a giant bulb of garlic. Think of it as a cookie jar for the Stinking Rose.

The last item is the Garlic Peel. The Garlic Peel is a tube-like device made of silicone that peels the skin off the garlic cloves.  You simply place the garlic cloves inside the tube-like device, and then between your hands or rubbing the Peel against the table you use friction to peel the cloves.

The Garlic Keep and the Garlic Peel will be available later in 2008

Corn Gadgets

The next set of new gadgets we liked was from a small company called CORNpatibles (www.cornpatibles.com). As their website states “Changing the way we cook & handle hot, fresh “Corn on the Cob” forever! The two products they were showing were the CornCappR and the CornCobbR.

We have used many different corn cob holders in our time. All of these traditional holders are little fork like things with handles that you struggle to impale the steaming hot ear of corn on after you cook it. With the CornCappR, you can place the holders on the corn BEFORE you cook it. Following the trend of silicon invasion of the kitchen, the CornCappR’s are heat resistant FDA approved silicon rings with raised ribs on the outside. They are placed on the corn prior to cooking in either boiling water or a microwave. Heat resistant CornCappR’s protect fingers and hands from getting burned, and allow you to handle and hold hot, fresh corn on the cob within seconds after being removed from the pot.

If you are like me, there is nothing better than sweet corn at the peak of the season. If you like to capture that goodness by freezing corn, the CornCobbR is your friend. The CornCobbR is a nifty tool for cutting the kernels of corn off of the cob. Gone are the days of wielding a sharp knife to free the sweet corn goodness. The CornCobbR makes quick and safe work of your task.

Cuisine Capers will be covering the International Home & Housewares show once again this year.

This show is restricted only to trade professionals in the industry, as well as qualified press and meda.  Cuisine Capers will be attending a media, and we’re looking forward to covering the latest in home gadgets and products, as well as housewares and “gourmet living”. 

The show is broken down into sections, including Clean & Contain (home organization products, cleaning products, bat & shower products, pet products, and outdoor furniture), Wired & Well (household electronics, major appliances, home healthcare), and the Dine & Design Expo.

We, of course, will be found mainly in the Dine & Design Expo.  This expo covers all of the fun things in life – cookware, cutlery, kitchen tools & gadgets, spice racks, thermometers, dinnerware, glassware, bar accessories and more.

But what we are most excited about is the Gourmet Home and Food District.  This is where we’ll find the cookbooks, gourmet foods, and gourmet products.  This is also where the celebrity chefs hang out.  Last year we hung out with people like this:

For those of you who don’t know celebrity chefs, that’s Alton Brown, Paula Deen and Rocoo DiSpirito.  This year we expeect to see chefs like Tyler Florence and Todd English.

We’ve already been receiving the press releases announcing the new gadgets and goods, and we’ll be writing up information on what we found the most interesting, the most innovative, the most fun, and the most obscure.

I’ve been looking at them for years… I’ve been saying, “You know, I really need to get myself a salt pig”. I have just never done it.

I guess Greg got tired of hearing it, because he got me my salt pig for Christmas.

Voila. I now have my salt pig.

I’ve looked online at other salt pigs and have some recommendations if you want one too.  They come in a variety of colors and sizes – just click the image for more information on each one!

I give up. I’ve spent a lot of time pondering this, and I’ve been unable to come up with an answer.

Why do people search for “Rachel Ray’s garbage bowl”?

An enormous number of people find Cuisine Capers each and every day in their Google quest for information on this item.

Now, granted, one could turn the tables on me and ask – well, why would you write an entry about Rachel Ray’s garbage bowl? That is a very good question. It was a true moment of, “now why didn’t I think of that”?

But still – for those of you searching the web on information for Rachel Ray’s garbage bowl, could you give me some insight as to what it is you are trying to find out?

Thanks. It would help me sleep at night

I drink a lot of coffee. One could even argue that I drink too much coffee.

During the week I stop at a coffee shop on my way in to work to grab a nice cinnamon pecan coffee, or I make do with the swill that they pass off as coffee in the office. But now that we’ve moved out to the ‘burbs, there just isn’t a convenient place to grab a cup of coffee on weekends.

I have a really nice coffee maker that grinds up the beans before it brews the coffee. But it is big, and clunky, and I need to drag it out of the pantry on weekends just to make myself a cup. For some reason I have it in my mind that it takes too much work, and it isn’t worth it.

So I’ve been eyeing up this French Coffee Press at the coffee shop, and the other day I splurged and bought it. It is wonderful!

To make your coffee, you put the grounds in the bottom of the glass pot, and then steep the coarsely ground coffee directly in hot water. Once steeped, you slowly plunge the fine screen filter down into the pot. It works like a charm!

I liked it so much, I went back and bought another one to use in the office! 

Here’s the one that I use for at home. (click on the picture on the right to get more information). It is just the right size, and works out perfectly for sitting around on the weekend and having that nice morning cup of coffee.

But for work, I got one that was a little bit more serious. (Click on the picture to get more information). It keeps the coffee warm longer, and it is perfect for sitting on my desk within easy reach whenever I need to top off my cup.

I love them both!

Some of the long time readers of Cuisine Capers may recall my very unfortunate pizza escapade of last July. No? Ah, well, take a look at it if you dare. It wasn’t pretty.

So while working away on a few online projects this weekend, I had the Food TV Network on in the background. There seemed to be a weekend theme – PIZZA. Not just pizza, but lucious, wonderous pizzas made in New York pizzerias and around the world, often recreated in the Food TV kitchens.

I’ve often mentioned that while I seldom lift a recipe off of the Food Network, I do watch it for tips and techniques (Rachel Ray’s Garbage Bowl is a prime example of this….).

So I watched, and I decided that my problem was that I just didn’t have the right equipment required to make a real homemade thin, crispy crusted pizza. Sure, I had the pizza stone, but I did not have a pizza paddle.

So off I headed to my neighborhood Italian deli to hunt down said paddle. While there I also picked up a tidy wad of frozen pizza dough. And tonight, after work, I gave it a test:

And the end result? A picture speaks a thousand words… and it tasted even better than it looks!

A nice thin, crisp crust, flavored with a layer of pancetta, green peppers, red onions, kalamata olives, pesto, garlic, and mozzarella cheese, this was a resounding succes.

Now perhaps I can sleep better at night, having overcome this challenge.

It’s such a simple thing really…

It’s a salt pig. You put, well, salt in it. And then it sits on your counter and you use it to… salt things. I want this.

I don’t know why salt pigs aren’t very common. It seems like such a practical gadget.

And I don’t know why I don’t have one. It’s not like it is outrageously expensive.

Yet every so often I look at a picture of one and say, gee, one day I’m going to buy one of those.

It’s always dangerous going into a kitchen store. There are so many cool gadgets, and I never leave without spending too much money.

My latest cool gadget is this silicone Rubbermade grabber. It’s very cool – it goes over your hand like a sock puppet, and there is no way heat is going to get to your fingers. It’s a really simple gadget, but for some reason I saw it and I just had to have it.

Of course, I’d be able to take it much more seriously if Greg wouldn’t walk around with it on his hand, while he talked like Senor Wences.