Crave

These days, it always seems to come back around to food, and analyzing each other's food issues is pretty enlightening. Here are some tools to appease the inner food critic.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 141

Flint woman invents Corner Cap to keep boxes of food from spilling

World’s smallest microwave also has world’s worst name

Aero Blue Robot prepares to dish out unemployment to Japanese waiters

Chocolate scented calculator is torture for dieters

Hot Dogs to Go (thanks, engnr_chik!)

The Everdure "e" series was created for those of us who appreciate gadgets that combine practical designs with modern features. Modeled after minimalist Danish designs of the 1940s and 1950s, the series provides a huge list of available features in very small packaging.

(Credit: Everdure)

The series includes three sizes: the e7 and e5 have larger cooking surfaces with more burners, while the smaller e2 offers many of the same features in a grill with a smaller footprint. The e2 and e7 sport a ton of innovative features, including mult-e-cook heat control system for temperature regulation; a patent-pending mult-e-cook system, which allows you to wok, smoke, roast, cook pizza, and bake; and a patent-pending health-e-grill with a tilted surface, which drains fat away from your food as it cooks.

The e2 is missing the mult-e-cook, but makes up for it with its mult-e-plate, providing for easy transitions between hot plate and grill, and it also comes with flame failure valves that shut gas off when flames are blown out.

All three models also share several bells and whistles, including warming racks, esee integrated lighting, slide-out serveries, a stainless steel hood, and an integrated cleaning system.

You can find a feature comparison here or check out the lines individually on Everdure's Web site.

If it's not a right angle, it's a wrong angle. That's exactly the ethos that has inspired the type of precise, structured and rigidly useful gadgetry that we highlight in today's episode.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 138

The perfect father’s day gift for the Type A griller

Size your burgers your way

Cocoon’s laptop bag is perfect for type A personalities

Sensor-laden kokoro adjusts playlist to match the rhythm of your heart

GameDr destroys recreation of youth

Sony’s 400-disc BDP-CX7000ES Blu-ray Mega Changer reportedly coming soon

Go on, mingle.

(Credit: Cooking.com)

Grilling outdoors is great fun, and that fun is usually best shared with friends and family. I don't just mean hanging out with them and enjoying their company; I mean putting them to work. I have previously noted that engaging your guests is a good way to ensure a good time for all, but sometimes you just want to rule the grill.

Guarding the grill may give you the added benefit of constant meat moderation, but then you miss out on sharing time with your guests. The simple solution is to trust your guests and just monitor while you mingle.

The Outset Digital Remote Meat Thermometer with Receiver allows you to appreciate the thrill of owning the grill while simultaneously enjoying your own party. Featuring two probes that allow for two separate temperature readouts, the thermometer relays the information back to a remote sensor. With 10 meat settings and 4 doneness levels, specific preferences are just a signal alert away (assuming, of course, that you are within the 120-foot range of the unit).

The large digital backlit LCD display is easy to read and simple to use. Perhaps best of all, when you are not using the unit to guard the grill, the thermometer can be conveniently used indoors. Although guests are less likely to BYOBBQ for an indoor party and jockey over the oven, you just never know. Break free and enjoy the company.

Shiny and ready to grill.

(Credit: Blue Ember)

Sometimes it's OK to show off. Certainly everybody does from time to time. I may not be qualified to give reasoned speculation as to why we do this, but I certainly understand that it goes better with food. The Blue Ember iQue combines favorite grill features with an integrated computer for precision control and fun bragging points.

A touch-control onboard computer monitors time and temperature during the cooking process for easy grilling. Select your type of meat and desired level of doneness and the grill handles the rest. In tandem with the integrated temperature probe, the computer maintains the heat level and then automatically lowers it when food reaches the desired doneness. A sonar-based system keeps track of propane usage and displays the results in terms of remaining time.

The iQue can also operate without computer control. Other features are enough to satisfy any grill aficionado. An infrared rotisserie burner, a built-in smoker box, and a side burner all add to the versatility this grill can provide. It even comes with an ice bucket and a bottle opener.

If you're going to show off, you might as well make it tasty. Luckily, with the iQue and its 650 square inches of cooking surface, everybody gets to share in the appreciation of your shiny new grill. Appeasing the party with food definitely makes this one time when it's OK to brag.

(Via Appliancist)

Grilling can be a messy thing. We all know that. Just using charcoal and lighter fluid is sloppy enough, but when you consider the myriad of sauces, glazes, and marinades, it really becomes clear just how much of an ordeal it can be. Many opt for propane as a means to cook, thereby limiting at least some of the standard requisite mess.

(Credit: Hammacher Schlemmer)

Personally, for me, it is almost always worth it to suffer through a little mess for delicious grilled meats and vegetables. Messy or not, a good barbecue provides a unique way of cooking that's ingrained in all of our DNA.

However, no longer are charcoal or propane the only games in town. For those who want the easiest possible grilling experience (short of take out), there is the Intelligent Grill from Hammacher Schlemmer.

The grill is programmable and cooks food to your specifics. Just enter your cut of meat, thickness, and desired level of doneness via the keypad and LED screen. All of this means one very important factor: yes, it is an electric grill.

The grill uses two levels of heating elements to approximate the grilling experience. One produces direct heat, capable of searing grill marks, with the other designed to produce radiant heat. The 216-square-inch cooking surface, along with the stainless steel construction and storage shelves, certainly make it look like a grill, but something inside of me still yearns for flame-scorched food--no matter how messy it can be.

Now that the clocks have been set back and winter is nigh, it's getting dark mighty early. But that doesn't mean you can't still get outside and grill. It just might take a little more effort and some good lighting.

Steven Raichlen's Lumatong

(Credit: The Steven Raichlen Store)

Fortunately, there are plenty of BBQ accessories available to help make that possible. Steven Raichlen's "Lumatong" is a set of tongs with an attached LED flashlight that shines light wherever the tongs are pointed.

Brookstone's grill light clamps onto the handle of a large grill to produce a wider lighted area. And the Zelco Bugs Beware light will not only illuminate the grill but can repel mosquitoes, too.

It's true that there's nothing quite like grilling in the dead of summer, but if you've got a hankering for barbecue, there's no reason to give in to the Standard Time doldrums. Unless, of course, you live in Michigan.

Show your pride for your alma mater with one of 47 college logos. Mmm, good chicken. Go Eagles!

(Credit: Texas Irons)

If you've ever slaved away at the grill all afternoon, only to find your guests have snatched up all the juiciest steaks on the platter before you could get to them, read on. With personalized branding irons, you can brand that sucker and claim it as your own.

Texas Irons has a whole slew of branding irons that allow you to make your mark on the meat (or veggie burgers) you grill. Sear your initials into your food with any of the custom monogramming options, show your Texan pride with a Texas longhorn, bless the meal with an ichthys, sear a steak for your sweetie with double hearts, or use the smiley face to say happy cows don't come only from California.

The irons start at $29.95 and work their way up to $79.95 for a deluxe set with interchangeable letters (which might come in handy the next time you have a grill-off).

Let's all just be grateful that they don't carry a replica of the one used in Jackass 2.

(Credit: Oregon Scientific)

It was only afew days ago that we hought we'd found the ultimate barbecue tool with the "Redi-Chek Remote Thermometer," which monitors your culinary feats wirelessly from up to 100 feet away while you watch TV. How wrong we were.

Oregon Scientific has weighed in with a wireless version of its own that monitors your steaks from a distance up to 330 feet so you can even see the game on the neighbor's new plasma. But here's the real kicker: It talks to you. The "Grill Right" thermometer can "verbally alert you" in five languages when the meat is cooked to specification.

Not only that, but for the barbecue-challenged among us, the handheld unit's LCD screen will display a picture of the type of animal that's been dispatched for the grill, along with a wealth of other information. As they say on generic infomercials (redundant?), this is one gadget that can suit any lifestyle, whether you're using a George Foreman iGrill or a 24-carat gold-plated BeefEater.