Cooking For Engineers®

Recently, I received a wireless thermometer from Thermoworks to try out. Their newest product is called Smoke and is specifically designed to help people barbecue and smoke food at home. Smoke has two parts - a base unit (which takes two of Thermoworks standardized Pro-Series probes) and a wireless receiver unit - which lets the user track the air temperature and the food temperature without going outside to the smoker.
Thermoworks is selling the Smoke at $99 and this would definitely welcome tool for anyone who likes to slow cook food outside.

Twelve years ago, I wrote an article comparing plastic and wood cutting boards which may be why one of the most frequent questions that I get is what cutting board do I use in my personal life. For the last six years, I have been using cutting boards made by Epicurean Cutting Surfaces and my wooden cutting boards haven't come out of storage for years. Here's why I like the Epicurean boards.

A few months ago, Hefty released a new line of products called the Hefty Serve 'n Store tableware. There's nothing revolutionary about a set of plastic plates or microwavable storage containers - but the Hefty Serve 'n Store is definitely a clever improvement over its parents: the plastic disposable plates and the low-cost multi-use disposable plastic container. Each plate interlocks with another plate of the same design to form a resealable container. We tried them in our daily lives (and under some contrived tests) and they performed admirably.
Update 2008-05-27 - The Hefty Serve 'n Store product line seems to be discontinued.

It's been a while since I've written an article on Cooking For Engineers. There are lots of reasons for this including lack of time (or perhaps poor time management) and raising Emma (who is now nearly 3 years old), but I haven't stopped cooking and trying stuff in the kitchen. Many readers have encouraged me to return to writing and not worry so much about preparing an exhaustive article. A few have also suggested that to get back into writing, I could just write about stuff that I use or cook regularly. With that in mind, I've decided to start writing shorter equipment reviews to get back into the rhythm of writing. Then I was faced with the daunting task of picking what to write about first. After some more paralysis, I decided to write about a tool that I don't use that much anymore, but I'm happy to have on hand when I need it: OXO Good Grips Food Mill.