cooking

Warming tray heats up the party

Finding the best way to serve food is often a challenge. When it comes to finding a way to serve a complete meal, all at one time, the challenge can become more difficult than cooking the meal in the first place. As the protein, the starch, and the vegetable progress through the process of cooking, it is rare that they all finish at the same time. Keeping one warm while the others finish then becomes a priority. When it comes to cooking for a crowd, the task can become downright difficult.

The Nostalgia Electrics Buffet Server and Warming Tray simplifies … Read more

Kick start your healthy lifestyle

Looking to lose weight? Lower your cholesterol? Control your diabetes? Prevent cancer? These are among the proven benefits of a vegan diet--meaning one free of all animal products (meat, dairy, etc.). However, starting such a restrictive plan can be a bit of a challenge.

Enter 21-Day Vegan Kickstart, a free app that provides three weeks' worth of meals, complete with recipes. According to experts, that's enough time to drop a few pounds, lower your blood sugar, and just generally start feeling better. And, hey, anybody can manage 21 days, right? At the end, it's up to you to … Read more

iPhone app kickstarts your healthy lifestyle

Looking to lose weight? Lower your cholesterol? Control your diabetes? Prevent cancer? These are among the proven benefits of a vegan diet--meaning one free of all animal products (meat, dairy, etc.).

OK, but how do you get started? Without your morning cereal, lunchtime Quarter Pounder, and the like, what are you supposed to eat?

Enter 21-Day Vegan Kickstart, a free app that provides three weeks' worth of meals, complete with recipes. Why three weeks? According to experts, that's enough time to drop a few pounds, lower your blood sugar, and just generally start feeling better. And, hey, anybody can … Read more

Robot tries to flip pancakes, luckily doesn't flip out

How many tries does it take for a robot to screw in a lightbulb? How about flip a pancake? If the video below is any indication, IHOP won't be robotized anytime soon.

Sylvain Calinon of the Italian Institute of Technology is into teaching robots skills by first taking the bots through the steps involved. For a cooking class on pancakes, Calinon and colleagues used a seven-axis Barrett WAM robotic arm and a simulated pancake with four tracking markers.

As the video shows, the arm needs more than a bit of practice to get the right touch--it finally manages to … Read more

5 killer iPhone apps for foodies

Believe it or not, my stomach is looking forward to the arrival of my iPad (hurry up, UPS!) just as much as my brain. That's because I can envision the tablet on my kitchen counter (sitting upright in a dirt-cheap stand, of course), serving up page after page of delicious recipes, each with tantalizing photos and large, easy-to-read text.

In the meantime, I'm making due with my iPhone (or my wife's iPod Touch--whatever's closer). The print may be a little small, but the cooking/recipe apps are first-rate. Here's a list of my five favorites:… Read more

Chinese robot chef can't walk, but it can wok

Robots might not be very good at dinner conversation, but more and more people seem to think they'd make good chefs.

We've seen a pancake-flipping robot in Tokyo; some ramen chef bots in Nagoya, Japan; and a wonky iron chef in Beijing, China. Now, two Chinese universities are getting in on the action with an automatic chef that cooks hundreds of Huaiyang cuisine dishes.

Shanghai Jiaotong University, Yangzhou University, and a Shenzhen firm recently produced the third generation of their chef robot, which looks like a giant vending machine housing a gas stove, automatic stir-fry unit, and containers … Read more

A greener nonstick option

I'm gradually making my family more eco-friendly, one reusable bag at a time. We've switched from paper to cloth napkins, and we no longer buy paper towels at all. I'm looking for new cookware right now to replace some of my aging pieces, and I wanted to find out about eco-friendlier options. One name I came across is Ecolution, featuring Hydrolon nonstick coating.

Like Teflon, Hydrolon is a multilayer nonstick material. But here's how the two materials are different: Teflon is applied using PFOA, or pertfluorooctanoic acid, a surfactant used to make certain fluoropolymer dispersions. What … Read more

Apple COO gets $5 million thank-you

Steve Jobs salary is $1. The cost of a six-month replacement for him? $5 million.

That's what Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook was granted Wednesday as a reward for taking over while Jobs was on medical leave from January to June 2009, according to an SEC filing made by the company Friday.

The Apple board's compensation committee "unanimously approved a recommendation by Steve Jobs" to award Cook a one-time $5 million bonus as well as 75,000 restricted stock units as a thank you for "his outstanding performance," the filing reads.

Cook's … Read more

New iPhone games of the week (February 10, 2010)

Each week brings a slew of new iPhone games to our doorstep (digitally speaking), but time doesn't permit us to write individual posts about each one. Therefore, here's a roundup of some new and interesting titles you might want to check out:

Daisy Mae's Alien Buffet Unapologetically sexist and gloriously campy, Daisy Mae (top) has the look of a '50s drive-in movie and a plot to match: the gun-toting titular heroine must blast wave after wave of aliens that have invaded her trailer park. Boy, howdy! Giana Sisters If you like Mario-style platform games, you're sure … Read more