Blog becomes a book. Life imitates art. And so on. Cool Tools in the Kitchen is an ebook (ebook only that is) that was curated by Steven Leckart of Wired and Kevin Kelly of kk.org. While the entire book is drawn from the contents of the Cool Tools section of the blog, as the authors rightly pointed out, you would have to go searching through the site to find all of the best kitchen tools. For a few dollars instead, you can get this book.
While I’m a big fan of ebooks, I still grew up in an age without and really enjoy a well-assembled book with color photos and diagrams. For that reason, I was a bit disappointed with what was a fairly basic format, with no obvious attempt to enhance the original blog posts. On the other hand, this is only a $4 ebook! I shouldn’t complain too much.
This is hardly a compendium of every single ktichen gadget out there. Rather think of it as a set of ideas, about 80 in total. Once you find something you like, look it up, and I bet that leads to you lots of other cool tools. To round it out, CTitK also includes over a dozen book recommendations even including one on sous vide, as well as a set of online references and services to to help you out.
Here are my five (5), umm 6 favorite items from the book:
- Butter Bell – keeps butter outside of the fridge in an airtight container.
- Kuhn Rikon Safety Lid Lifter – essentially a can opener that opens up a can in 3 better ways: the blade doesn’t touch the food, the lid doesn’t fall in and there are no sharp edges left over.
- Zeroll Ice Cream Scoop – has a head-conductive fluid sealed in that transmits heat from your hand to the scoop to make scooping even the hardest ice cream easy.
- Lee Valley Jar Opener – Uses a lever mechanism to break a jar’s vacuum seal without distorting the lid’s shape.
- Peanut Butter Mixer – if you like natural nut butters, but hate mixing them, this does it without the inevitable mess.
- Whizard Handguard – Kevlar gloves to protect your hands from knife cuts.
Again, did I mention this was only $4? Let me put it this way, think about what a consultant might charge you just to come in and take one look at your kitchen!
(Disclaimer: Gizmos for Geeks received a complimentary review copy of this product.)