Contrary to popular belief, you’re not supposed to drink red wine at room temperature or white wine straight out of the refrigerator. Most whites taste best after being allowed to warm up about twenty minutes after being removed from the fridge, and your better Chardonnays and White Burgundies really shine at cellar temperature, which is about 55°. Red wines generally drink best at close to 65°, which unless you live in my grandparents’ old house, probably is a bit colder than room temperature. So the easy rule of thumb is to take white wine out of the refrigerator twenty minutes before you eat and put red wine in the fridge at the same time. But easy isn’t exact, and this is after all a techie blog. Let’s add a little rigor to the process! Enter, my trusty Thermapen instant read thermometer. I reviewed this incredibly useful piece of tech here on Gear Diary in the years before the Great Server Crash of Aught-Eight, so that post is lost to the ages, but here’s a link to another article I wrote about Thermapen at another site. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Now far be it from me to tell a man (or a woman for that matter) how to use their BBQ grill. Like politics and religion, grilling is a topic where advice is rarely appreciated or even more rarely followed. I’m sure you’re great at cooking a steak over charcoal or gas, and I wouldn’t tell you to your face if I thought otherwise. A. because you’re feeding me and B. because you probably have fire and sharp BBQ tools within arm’s reach. Maybe you’re one of those people who can judge a steak’s doneness by comparing the surface of the meat to the firmness of the fleshy part of your thumb pad. Good for you then. (Please, oh please, don’t cut into a steak while it’s still on the grill to check whether it’s cooked enough. Meat must rest after cooking or you’ll just let all the good juices out!) But as techy types, gadget enthusiasts should strive to introduce some rigor into their grilling methods and cook to exact internal temperatures whenever possible. For example, I like my steak to come off the grill at precisely 122 degrees and allow it to come up to a beautiful pink medium-rare [...]

Right before we left for CES we received a review sample of the Happy Hour Bottoms Up Timepiece. The Bottoms Up is a nice-quality watch with a large, impressive face, a wide, comfortable band and… a bit of a surprise. Here’s a look with a video that will make clear what is special about this watch.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

On the way back from a meeting at the Wynn Hotel we passed by a small kiosk for IcePan. IcePan is ice cream that is made right in front of you while you watch. It is never put into an ice-cream maker but, instead, is made using a pan kept at 35 degrees below zero. (Yeah, it is cold.) We shot a video of it being made so, without further ado… I scream, you scream, we all scream for IcePan Cream. (Yeah, I went there.)… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Early this week preparations for CES went into high gear. I commented to the GD team that during the week a staple of my diet tends to be either sugar-free Red Bull or FiveHour Energy and that, upon arrival, I may buy a case of each. I also made an offhand comment that a box of FiveHour Energy is rather pricey. Bryan chimed in that he has a SodaStream and one of the available mixes is an energy concentrate. It would, he noted, be far more economical. Two days later I joined the ranks of the SodaStream users. Funny thing is, Elana had mentioned possibly getting one for her parents… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When you first see the Blacktop 360 Portable Griddle/Grill/Fryer, it’s hard not to think it’s a gimmicky product. I mean it just screams “As Seen on TV” thanks to its claim to be the Swiss Army Knife of your tailgating needs with a propane grill top, a griddle for frying or warming and even a 20 oz. fryer basket. But upon further inspection, darned if it doesn’t live up to its motto, “Tailgating Turned up to 11.” Let’s take a closer look. First of all, if you order one of these via mail order, be prepared to tip the Fed Ex guy if he has to carry this big old box up any steps. Weighing in at 37 lbs., you’ll be very pleased that the Blacktop 360 comes with a handy carry bag that is big enough to hold the grill and all the tools and accessories that come with it. Inside that box is the griddle/grill which has three separate burners which total 24,000 BTUs and a cooking surface of 452 inches. I know that sounds like a lot of area, but most of the cooking space is arranged in a circle around the deep fryer and is divided [...]

I’m a big fan of foursquare and check in often enough that family members will remind me if I don’t do it quickly enough. After months with no mayorships, except a brief period I was major of a tram station in Las Vegas during CES 2010, I have finally become the major at a number of our local favorites. This evening we decided to grab a bite at Chili Willie’s, a family-run mexican restaurant in town. (I’m not yet mayor there.) When we sat down Elana was momentarily ticked at herself. It seems she had a $10… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

So does anybody actually still do shots anymore? In my younger day, I might have tipped a few back, and I do see the young folks dropping a Jägerbomb every now and then at my local watering hole. But for the most part, I like to sip my drinks rather than snapping my head back and pouring one down my gullet. However, if you are in the holiday spirit for some holiday spirits and want to maximize the efficiency of your consumption, then perhaps a set of Bombs Away Shot Glasses from ConvenientGadgets.com is just the ticket. Made from sturdy double-walled borosilicate glass, which is apparently the same material used to make scientific lab equipment, these shooters are attractive enough right out of the box.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

. Whiskey Disks. It’s probably wise not to try to say that three times fast, especially if you’ve been drinking whiskey. Actually Whiskey Disks are a new product designed to give spirits fans the best possible enjoyment of their sipping. When I first heard about Whiskey Disks, I immediately reached out the manufacturers to see if I could try some out for myself. They quickly obliged, which is fortunate since I usually enjoy at least one glass of bourbon every night after dinner to take the edge off a hard day of writing about food and booze. I normally enjoy my brown liquors on the rocks with a splash of water, but this can be problematic. Why drink whiskey on the rocks? And why the splash? Most scotches and whiskeys benefit from being served slightly chilled, but not to the same degree as vodka or gin, which many people store in their freezers. Straight up is certainly an option, and it certainly avoids the possibility of melting ice diluting your expensive glass of single malt. Alcohol melts ice quickly, so it’s a given that mixing them will eventually lower the proof of the contents of your glass. But if you’re [...]

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I’ve loved pork for a long time – waaay before the hipsters made bacon worship popular. One of my favorite ways to spend a Saturday afternoon is to put a pork butt on the smoker first thing in the morning and watch college football all day while the meat soaks up the hickory goodness. Since you have to add new wood every hour or so, it pretty much guarantees that you have to stay on your couch all day and restoke the fire at halftime of each game. Sorry about those chores, sweetie. Can’t you see I’m working here? While there are probably lots of places in your town to pick up a pound of your bbq, occasionally it’s nice to be able to show off your grillsmanship and smoke your own butt or shoulder. Luckily, there is The Peg Leg Porker himself, Carey Bringle, is here to help you out. If you’ve ever had the chance to meet Carey, you’d discover that he’s one of the bbq circuit’s true characters. He’s the kind of guy whose business card reads: “Wars Fought — Stud Service — Revolutions Started — Tigers Tamed — Assassinations Plotted — Bars Emptied — Governments Run [...]

Yes, I’m not sure how appetizing your favorite drink will be when served from this dispenser but one thing is certain – it will get a laugh (pity or otherwise). As the product description explains: Santa Claus makes everything so much more festive and joyous, even when he’s pouring Liquor for you! Well, he sure has a weird way of helping you to a little drink. He never stops delivering gifts to you with an overly generous helping hand. When you feel the spirit of the season, call on Santa. When you’re feeling like a scrooge, call on Santa. When you just need something truly bizarre in your life, call on Santa. The only thing that’s gonna be Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Early in December we’ll be heading down to our timeshare for a week of sun. Each day there has a fairly typical routine that includes being back in one of the timeshare apartments playing Scrabble, cards, reading and, of course, having afternoon drinks. It for that reason that one of the items I may be packing this year is a citrus squeeze. Yes, I may actually bring my own citrus squeezer along on our vacation. Why? Because nothing is better than a delicious fresh margarita made with fresh squeezed lime juice!!  … Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Long-time Gear Diary fans may remember me from my stint a few years back as our resident “Stunt Reviewer.” Well, like a bad penny, I’ve turned up again and Judie and the gang have been nice enough to welcome me back to contribute the occasional review or announcement, specifically for the “Yum Log” section where we take a look at kitchen, food and cooking products and gadgets. In the couple years since I stopped writing here, I’ve been a full-time food blogger for the Nashville Scene in my home town and an occasional contributor to regional and national food magazines and blogs, so hopefully I’m at least as qualified to write about these topics as I was to test an anti-poison ivy cream. So what’s first in the new review queue? How about the Belkin Kitchen Cabinet Mount for iPads and other tablets? I do a lot of cooking at home, and despite the fact that I just turned in a cookbook I wrote to my publisher last month, I’m much more likely to use my iPad to source a recipe than any of the multitude of cookbooks that occupy so much shelf space in my kitchen. Of course that [...]

It comes as no surprise to anyone who lives on this planet that the iPad is finding its way into pretty much every aspect of our lives and certainly into pretty much every room of the house. Among the places where it can come in particularly handy is the kitchen. Thanks to the iPad, the days of needing a special under-cabinet television if you want to watch a show while cooking are gone. Similarly, the days of needing a separate music player/boombox are over. In fact, unless you are my purest, like my wife Elana, you don’t even need  paper cookbooks and longer. Yes, the iPad can fulfill all of these functions and many more… Continue reading on Gear Diary …