Saturday, July 12, 2008

Digital thermometer

Ordinarily I'm not much of a gadget person. I don't like a lot of one-use items cluttering up my kitchen (space I could be using for beautiful serveware!) I find most of the choppy, slicey, dicey, gadgety things to be flimsy and not very useful after the initial excitement wears off. Make your own salsa and smoothies, bake a three-layer cake and construct a radio-controlled rocket - all with this simple blender/chopper/grinder/screwdriver! Yours for only $19.95!!! However, here is a handy little item that I have come to love.

One year, I got to give my mom this awesome digital remote food thermometer for Christmas. Except it was from my dad. So I didn't so much give it to her as I talked my dad into it, drove to get it, wrapped it and brought it to our house and let my dad take all the glory. Oh well.

Anyway, it wasn't the same Christmas but Joe (the gift tag said it was from Emeril but I think I'm on to him) bought me a probe thermometer of my own and I loved it and cherished it and used it all the time. Until he broke it. Joe broke it, not Emeril. So your take-home lesson is that these might be safe in the oven, but not so much in the BBQ. Apparently the probe touched the grill rack and cranked itself up to 328 degrees... and there it has stayed for 2 weeks. Sadly, it's time for another thermometer.

Lacking the $50 it would take to replace my thermometer with the Williams-Sonoma brand, I've been searching other stores. I've found a few promising ones at Target, like this one.
I like that it has a pot clip - very useful for candy-making (I used to attach the probe to my wooden spoon with a twist-tie to keep it from touching the bottom of the pan). Another plus - it's fairly inexpensive. Anyone out there have some other good recommendations? Also, I might splurge and get this for husband as well...

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