Healthy lunch, health lunch box

Most days I can't remember how many servings of fruit I'm supposed to have, let alone the correct serving size. I don't have a food pyramid poster handy and, as much as I'd like to make sure I'm eating all my food groups in the correct proportions, it's not particularly easy to determine just what should be in a healthy meal. The Pyramid Lunch Box simplifies matters. Designed by Li Jianye from Yanko Design, the Pyramid Lunch Box is a triangle divided into three compartments of varying size. The largest is meant to hold bread and other carbohydrates--the foods that the food pyramid suggests we should eat the most of. A slightly smaller compartment is for fruits and vegetables and the smallest is for meat and other proteins. No compartment for sweets, I'm afraid. Not only does the Pyramid Lunch Box help you plan your meal to make sure that you're including items from all the necessary food groups, the compartments are also sized to match serving requirements, helping to keep portion size under control. The Pyramid Lunch Box has a matching triangular lid. While I do think that the Pyramid Lunch Box is a perfect tool for packing a lunch, I'm not so sure I'd want to eat out of it: I like mixing up my grains, vegetables and proteins.

Use a gun in the kitche?

I'm a big fan of spices and seasonings: they can really change a dish from bland to amazing. I like to have fun with my spices, though, and I think the Spice Gun is just the ticket. A Chinese designer, Zhu Fei, came up with the idea of the Spice Gun: instead of shaking out your preferred spice, this gadget 'shoots' it out, using compressed air to push seasonings out of the gun.


There are three barrels in the Spice Gun, allowing you to load it up with the spices of your choice--you can change up your ammo by spinning the barrel. The gun only shoots dried spices, and it looks as if ground herbs are easier to load.


While the Spice Gun was created as a fun twist on the seasoning shaker, I've already thought of a few practical applications. When I'm cooking my Thanksgiving turkey, for instance, I like to put some spice on the inside of the bird. I usually wind up using my hands because I'm worried about getting my spice shakers dirty. However, if I could just shoot the spices into the cavity, I don't think there would be near as much mess.

My favorite knife block

I've always thought that the scariest part of the circus was the knife thrower. It's so easy to imagine the knife thrower's assistant going home minus an ear--but that isn't a worry for the little guy in the middle of Throwzini's Knife Block. This knife block really does spin, making putting away your cutlery a little more exciting. Luckily, you can get the thrill of the knife thrower's wheel without the worry that goes with the full-size version.


The block itself is handcrafted from wood, with a small red figure--or target--in the center. The five stainless steel professional chef knives that accompany the block are held in place with magnets in their individual protective sheaths. It's built solidly to guarantee that, while your knives might get a thrill from spinning, you won't get any unpleasant surprises. The knives included with the block are described as "razor sharp" so the designers made safety a priority.

Throwzini's Knife Block was designed by Urban Trend, a consumer products company with a flair for the dramatic. It retails for $99.95, a small price to pay if you have some frustrated ambitions as a knife thrower yourself.

Stovetop Smoker

It's a bit cold out to be tending a smoker outside right now, no matter how much you enjoy the taste of perfectly smoked meat, fish, and vegetables. That means we need a smoker usable indoors--and the Stovetop Smoker from Sur la table is ideal for that purpose. With it you can get the taste of smoked fish or meat without the hassle. The Stovetop Smoker comes with four different kinds of wood chips, offering you a variety of options that you can mix and match for your favorite meals. It's 7 inches wide by 11 inches long and fits comfortably on top of the average stove. The Stovetop Smoker is made of heavy-gauge stainless steel and includes a drip tray to collect fat while it's tenderizing dinner to a juicy perfection. The smoker also comes with a recipe book. When the weather warms up next spring, don't box up the Stovetop Smoker. You can use it outdoors as well, and it will turn out some delectable treats for your cookouts--although you may need to stock up on some more wood chips for the warm weather. The Stovetop Smover is priced at $39.95, and while it might be smaller than some other smokers, it can definitely handle dinner.

DIY Chocolates

I'm a big fan of the fancy hot chocolates that come from coffee shops--the ones with little shavings of chocolate and a big dollop of whipped cream on top of the actual drink. With the Chocolate Mill from Williams-Sonoma, I can add those little tastes of chocolate to drinks at home. Using the Chocolate Mill is just a matter of loading it with the chocolate chunks of your choice, holding it over your drink, and turning the hand crank. You can choose chocolate a little more out of the ordinary than the typical milk chocolate most coffee shops seem to use, too. Dark chocolate, or even white chocolate, work just as well as the Chocolate Mill cranks out paper-thin shavings of chocolate. It's perfect for adding a finishing touch to desserts and candies, as well as hot drinks.
The Chocolate Mill does require a little hand-cleaning, although you can store chocolate in it, rather than emptying it out and cleaning it after each use--just as you might leave peppercorns in a pepper grinder indefinitely. However, it's probably best to store the chocolate mill in your refrigerator between uses. The mill is priced at $35.

Kitchen Revolution: No Refrigerator

How green is your kitchen? If you’re part of “small segment” of the eco-conscious, you don’t have a fridge.
Here in New York, it’s not uncommon to help the environment by burning less natural gas; you eat out and use your oven as it was meant to be used in tiny apartments – to store sweaters. But some folks – apparently, ones who give up readily cold beer and live in chilly climes where they can store their mayo on the porch – have gone the extra mile by disconnecting their refrigerators.
“It seems wasteful to me to use even an Energy Star-rated fridge,” one satisfied, fridge-less woman, Rachel Muston of Ottawa, tells the newspaper, “because I’m getting along fine without one.”
It's not a radical idea to want to reduce the carbon footprint of your kitchen – alt-energy companies are building solar refrigerators, and even Einstein and fellow physicist Leo Szilard patented three prototypes that operated without moving parts. But is it really necessary to junk your icebox in the process?
Consider this: refrigerators use the least amount of energy of all common household technologies, according to data released last month by the Department of Energy. Home heating uses the most, followed by, as a group, lights and appliances including dishwashers, clothes washers and dryers, computers and TVs. Water heaters make up the third largest share of household energy, followed by air conditioners. So exactly how many people in the U.S. have actually sworn off refrigeration? Deanna Duke of Seattle, who runs an eco blog called The Crunchy Chicken where visitors have debated the practice, tells ScientificAmerican.com that she's not aware of a formal stat. But of the 50,000 unique visitors to her site, she estimates that roughly 11 have disconnected their fridges. Another eight, she says, "sounded willing."
Duke published a blog post last month listing reasons why forsaking the fridge isn't worth it: additional tailpipe emissions from those extra supermarket runs, food that goes bad before you eat it, and the extra packaging from buying more frequent, smaller quantities. Her online adversary, a blogger known as "Greenpa," has rebuttals, among them, that city dwellers can easily pick up food on foot, and that many foods you think require refrigeration (such as butter, eggs and cheese) don't.
Other greenies aren’t convinced that life without a fridge makes sense. “It’s silly not to have one,” Texas mom Gretchen Willis told the Times, “considering what the alternative is: drinking up a gallon of milk in one day so it doesn’t spoil.”