kitchen

Get kitchen help with Mise En Place and Merillat iOS apps

There is no shortage of grocery list apps and kitchen calculator apps, but here's an example of each that I think iPhone owners might find useful.

The first goes beyond simply helping you create a shopping list for your next run to the store. In addition to creating a grocery list, it also helps you schedule and plan your meals. The second app is noteworthy because it provides useful kitchen conversions and substitutions for free.

Mise En Place I have yet to find a grocery list app that is easier to use than the small pad of paper I … Read more

Film composer cooks up music in the kitchen (video)

It's inevitable. Whenever you throw a party, it might start in the living room, but it always ends up in the kitchen.

Film composer Stephen J. Anderson created a party of sorts in his kitchen recently. He crafted a synthesizer out of old electronics and then attached various objects--bowls, a cheese grater, a whisk--to it to compose music. (Or, as he puts it, "to make noise using amplified static electricity.") In this YouTube video, watch him transform cans of Pam cooking spray, among other things, into a musical instrument. This is what happened, Anderson said, when he … Read more

NetChef turns Android into a kitchen appliance

LAS VEGAS--Many an iPad has been besmirched by kitchen grease and condiments. Save your super-expensive tablet from spilled milk by picking up an Android-powered NetChef.

NetChef is primarily a recipe device, but it also holds photos, plays music, connects to Facebook, gives you the weather, and runs Android apps.

There are 500 built-in recipes for those times when your Internet goes down during Thanksgiving dinner prep. An endless supply of recipes is available from manufacturer Sungale's own database and all the Android cooking apps you can download.

NetChef runs Android 2.3. The current version of the gadget is … Read more

Flip-top slow cooker

Just like families themselves, family dinners come in all shapes and sizes. Regardless of exactly how families get together, one thing for certain is that there will be a lot of them doing just that during the upcoming days. That and making a mess.

Naturally, that would mean making a mess at the dinner table. As family and friends get together for the holidays, food will be served in abundance. It's as traditional as the yearly argument about whatever the yearly argument happens to be. If that argument happens to be about setting the wet slow cooker lid on … Read more

Crave giveaway: Digital Holga Kitchen Sink Kit

While Holga might not be a household name, the lo-fi photo effects inspired by its famed toy film cameras are familiar to anyone with a smartphone. If you've ever tweaked your shots by adding heavy vignetting, dreamy softness, and light leaks, you're in Holga territory.

The film cameras have been around since the early '80s and continue to be prized as much for their simplicity as for their imperfections. However, if you're not up for the expense or hassle of shooting film and using software and apps seems too much like cheating, there is a way to return some unpredictability to your digital photography--and if you win this week's giveaway, you'll be able to do it for free. … Read more

French Digital Kitchen: HAL 9000 meets Jacques Pepin

I know enough French to order two croissants and buy a bottle of wine. That successfully got me through a week in Paris, but I could improve my skills astronomically if I got a French Digital Kitchen.

Newcastle University in England has installed this kitchen, which is designed to helps students learn a language and gain some cooking skills at the same time. PBS should be all over this.

Everything from the mixing bowls to the peelers to the flour and sugar have embedded sensors that work under the same concept as a Nintendo Wii. The computer knows where the tools are and what motions are being made.

The computer gives you instructions in French and tracks your progress as you work your way through a recipe. It's like a GPS for making crepes and Croque Monsieur.… Read more

Food processor flips switch for slicing choices

Kitchens are constantly in a state of flux. Food comes and goes, transforming from raw ingredients into finished plates. Frequently, as the chopping, slicing, and overall prepping occurs, things need to be switched up on the fly. When confronted with change while operating a food processor, home chefs are usually required to exchange attachments, stalling the cooking process. Or they could just flip a switch. More than just a feature for adapting to change, an external lever on the KitchenAid KFP1333 Food Processor allows you to adjust slicing thickness of a variety of foods, whether the need to is foreseen … Read more

Hand mixer takes it to the next level

Some kitchen appliances come with a host of features that never get used. The allure of versatility in the kitchen being what it is, the inclusion of suspect features will never go out of style. But when that added versatility does shine, so often it is when attachments are involved. Even those that store away in a plain canvas bag.

The KitchenAid 9-Speed Architect Series KHM920 Hand Mixer features the usability that has long made hand mixers staples of the kitchen. Turning up the versatility, this model provides attachments that extend the usefulness of the one gadget. Along with two … Read more

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

Facebook bumps up privacy controls

The new iPhone may land on Sprint by mid-October, developers can start submitting apps for Windows Phone 7 "Mango" due out next month, and Facebook has announced new privacy controls.

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded: