Grab Bag

Tech: Kitchen Hardware

I am a huge fan of one Mr. Alton Brown and I just love his show Good Eats. If you have never seen it, it is the geek’s answer to cooking. Alton is very knowledgeable and he is also very entertaining. I had the good fortune to meet him at a book signing a few years ago and meeting him in person left such an impression upon me. Alton talked for 45 minutes- an hour taking questions from fans about the show, about food, about everything and then he greeted each person and spent 3-5 minutes talking with them as he signed their books. He signed two for us as well as two for my sister and her husband.

Alton has his own line of cool gadgets that he uses on his show. And that is the sweet hardware that I want to tell you about. Partially because I own some of the hardware and partially because I really want some of the hardware.

First off is the Salt Cellar, this has become one of our favorite kitchen tech items. We filled it with kosher salt and use it to salt meats and boiling water and anything that needs flavor enhancement. I got that for my wife as a gift one year.

The Second is the plunger set. These are fancy measuring plungers that you can easily add multiple ingredients too. The are wonderful devices.

What I really want however is the Grilling Essentials kit. This includes a Heavy duty heat-resistant terry gloves, Extra-sturdy spring-loaded tongs & a T. Rex water spray bottle – for those pesky flare ups. I know I can go to the hardware store and buy some welder’s gloves and that would be more authentic Alton but I just love the AB gear.

I also love watching Alton on TV and his show called Feasting on Asphalt was my favorite.

I am in a contest to win a set of Feasting On Asphalt DVD’s. Feasting on Asphalt was a 4 our special that starred Alton Brown and his friends on a cross country motorcycle and eating tour of America. I travel all the time and love to find out of the way places to eat. This premise of this show was music to my ears.

Unfortunately I ended up messing up the taping of this series each week and finally watched it during a 4 hour marathon session. Well, now there is a DVD set and I want one. Christine is giving one away if I get the highest number of votes. Voting ends on Wednesday at 7:00pm EST. And you may vote once a day until then. I am neck and neck with another competitor and would really like to win this. The prize also comes with a View Master.

I heard also that there is going to be a Feasting on Asphalt 2 (I don’t know when it premieres yet, but once I do I will let everyone know.) But I did find the Feasting on Asphalt 2 blog. And I would love to take that trip through season 1 once more time before I see the next road trip.

I thought I would have the contest sewn up because I have a lot of friends at work who would be voting for me, but since the company has 2 IP addresses only 2 people of the 20 could place votes. They will all be trying from their home computers tonight. But I need to ensure victory so I am asking for anyone who reads and enjoys my blogs to please Vote for me (DREW).

Voting is super easy, just click Vote for Me to go to the voting page, then click on the Radio button next to my name (DREW) and then click VOTE. So simple.

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BlogCatalog, see it there on the right….

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You may have asked yourself, Why does The Benspark have so many little boxes with people’s photos on them from places like MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog. While I like both of these Social Networking sites I tend to favor BlogCatalog more. I seem to get more hits from BlogCatalog than I do from MyBlogLog and I even pay for the higher quality service features from MyBlogLog. What BlogCatalog offers me however is actually better and for free.

Almost every day I get a message telling me that someone new has joined my community or added me as a friend to their BlogCatalog. I don’t often get a message like that from MyBlogLog.

I like the layout of the BlogCatalog page for my profile. The profile lists all of my blogs, my list of BlogCatalog friends and the communities I am part of on BlogCatalog.

You can explore further into each of my individual blogs. When you view an individual blog on BlogCatalog you can see many points of information from that blog, you see the neighborhood members, recent viewers, my latest posts, and there is an area at the bottom where a user can post a review of the blog. I have gotten one review so far and I think that maybe it is because the option to review is so far down the page. I hadn’t realized it was there until I got my first review.

You can also start discussions on BlogCatalog and through the discussion feature I was able to connect with Scott from Wallhogs. And through that connection Scott was inspired to feature BIG art each day on the Wallhogs blog and that includes some of my Photo-A-Day stuff.

I think that in addition to a cool widget for your blog you also get a very nice neighborhood social interaction feel from BlogCatalog and it is a site I use often to explore new blogs as well as promote my own blog.

You can see each of my BlogCatalog Neighborhoods by following the links below or you can go to my profile and start your journey there.

The BenSpark

BenSpark 2: Electric Boogaloo

The Wired Kayaker

Flatwater Tech

If you end up stopping by please drop me a message, add yourself to the neighborhood and write a review and rate my blogs.

Another couple good features are, the ability to change your top friends and top neighborhoods. I love that feature and use it to give more exposure to my friends as well as their blog neighborhoods.

One Family's Adventures in the World