Gear Patrol

Cool, moisture-rich dishes are perfectly refreshing in summer. Pulling ingredients from the fridge, or better yet, your backyard, and preparing them sans the uncomfortable added heat of an oven or stovetop is the ideal. In our cold dish primer, we examine five excellent cold-dish recipes, along with the “methodology” of preparing each type of food and optional accompaniments and alternatives to make your (picnic) table sing.

Grabbing the tongs, stoking the coals and biting into a lightly charred piece of meat is and always will be a shared summer pleasure. That doesn’t mean everyone knows how to do it right. To teach you how to truly master the grill — or even just to bone up the old pros — we’ve compiled a list of 10 grilling tips (along with notes from Russ Faulk of Kalamazoo Grills) to make your sizzle entirely satisfactory.

Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet is the Bentley of the grilling world, so when their Chief Grill master and VP of Design Russ Faulk offered to sit down with us to talk about a new Pizza Oven he’d developed, we brought a bib and hot pepper flakes. Find out what makes his latest pizza oven rig so special in our latest edition of Breakdown.

Blame Anthony Bourdain and his gallivanting food porn circus. Blame Bravo’s utterly watchable, bro-it’s-not-reality-TV show, Top Chef. Blame the hipsters, the bandwagoners, the trust-funders — and for Guy Fieri’s sake — please, someone, blame Bobby Flay. Because if one thing is certain in today’s chow-crazy culture, it’s that you’ve got a foodie on your holiday…

Think of the best home cook you know. Now think of their kitchen. It’s probably full of pots, pans, mixers and gadgets galore. Know what it’s not full of? Cookbooks. That’s because they don’t need them. Anyone can follow directions from a recipe — well, almost anyone — but not everyone knows that a salty…

Pop quiz: Name a three things that get better with age. Wine? Of course. Beef? Within reason. The GP crew? You’re damn right, partner. And number four, for good measure, is a cast iron skillet. Before there were non-stick pans coated in Teflon or enamel, there was cast iron, the original non-stick surface thanks to…

It’s October, and what this month lacks in historical feasts and gift-giving holidays it makes up for many times over as autumn’s marrow. It’s apple picking season. It’s football season. It’s sweater and waxed canvas jacket season. It’s foliage season. And guess what else? It’s beef season.

If you’re a man who likes to cook outside the box (and the home) then the Critter moveable field kitchen just might be your perfect mobile culinary lab. Designed by Elia Mangia, the Critter was designed for serious gourmands who need extensive equipment with a view. Whether you don’t have access to a full kitchen…

Looking to elevate your home cooking from Boyardee to Batali? Fresh herbs are an excellent place to start. The Urban Cultivator ($2,200) lets home chefs not living in the state of California do the impossible — grow fresh hydroponic herbs or greens year-round. The home appliance, which is roughly the size of a dishwasher, maintains…

Light and compact is the mantra of anyone schlepping gear from a to b on their own two feet. You have to be able to cook, eat and drink without looking like you just raided a Williams-Sonoma store. Vargo’s Titanium BOT Bottle Pot does just that, despite having been named by a less-than-poet-laureate. Made of…

Most of us need another kitchen appliance like Lebron needs to reconsider leaving Cleveland. The Nomiku, a KickStarter project, is an effort to bring pro-grade sous vide to the home kitchen, without incorporating an industrial-size immersion circulator. Sized to fit in a drawer and priced (~$300) to fit the amateur’s budget, the Nomiku is a…

Love camping but hate truly roughing it? BaseCamp’s monster 42-quart Refrigerator/Freezer ($860) plugs right into your car’s 12V DC power system and can keep food/beverages/fresh kills cold at a 0°–45°F in one of two storage bins — leaving you to sit by the fire imagining whether you’d make it as a cowboy in the old…

Have a date this weekend you want to impress and can’t get a reservation at Alinea? If you have some cooking chops, or a partner that’s attracted to unproven culinary hubris, we suggest making a romantic dinner for two with the help of Modernist Cuisine at Home ($140). The take home version of the James…

You need a hot grill to sear in the juices for that High Plains Bison that was just delivered, but you also need a sub-400 degree zone to make sure your investment doesn’t go up in smoke. To make sure you’ve got your grill in order, just place the Taylor Grill Surface Thermometer ($10) directly…

Are you having trouble getting a rez at WD50? Did your connections at elBulli or The Fat Duck across the pond fail to pan out? Well, you could own kitchen into an experimental food lab this weekend with the Cuisine R – Evolution Molecular Gastronomy Set ($60). Yes, with some time and a little experimentation,…

The antithesis of ultralight backpacking? Hauling your own oven to bake 12′ frozen pizzas in the great outdoors. We’re not saying there’s anything wrong with the drag-your-home-into-the-bush mentality (we’ll wolf down a DiGiorno as fast as the next desperate soul after days of dehydrated meals), but at 41 lbs, Coleman’s new outdoor portable oven and…

Le Creuset’s wares have always been a staple of upscale kitchens, but we’ve never particularly liked their boisturious color options. This exclusive gunmetal gray version ($300) of their classic 7.25-quart round french oven done in collaboration with one of our favorite Southern publications, Garden & Gun, however, provides a tasteful upgrade to the deep black…

American Cookery ($10) is the first cookbook written by an American. Strangely, the only details that are actually known about its author come from the words “American orphan” found on the cover. Other hints from the book’s text suggest she was a domestic laborer who lacked formal education. The book was published originally in 1796…

Sous-vide (pronounced soo-veed) is a rather nerdy, but effective cooking submovement in the world of haute cuisine. The term literally translates to “under vacuum” in french, and involves sealing food in airtight plastic bags which are then placed in a precisely maintained hot water bath for extended periods of time. Typically the water temperatures are…

The duties of a traditional cast-iron range are typically three pronged: prepare food, provide ambient heat and heat water. They also happen to look like a million bucks. The trouble is, most take hours to reach proper operating temperature making them a poor match for busy households or those not fully entrenched in the slow…

We like author Barton Seaver’s new book, For Cod and Country ($18), for two reasons — neither of which involve the deplorable wordplay in its title. The first is that it’s filled with creative recipes for fish that will surely impress cod-fearing dinner guests if executed correctly (re: not like tuna surprise). The second, and…

Aprons and oven mitts in many ways perform similar functions. One prevents stains from scarring your clothing, while the other prevents scars from ruining your hands. This brilliant design combines both features in one convenient product, making it a bullet-proof vest of sorts for chefs. It even has two buttons at the waist for hanging…

The biggest bone we have to pick with Food Network personalities — or any telegenic chef for that matter — is how much easier cooking looks when their ingredients are already on hand and nicely organized by an army of production minions. “Now just take seven- and-a-half peeled edamame beans wrapped in pancetta and mix…

A brand new bowl probably isn’t at the top of your Christmas list this year, nor will it ever be. The Lékué Steam Roaster by Compeixalaigua Design Studio ($40) sports a cool enough design that we’d at least appreciate finding it under the tree. Made from 100% “Platinum” silicone, its ideal use case involves a…

You don’t need us to explain how salt can add flavor to your food. That said, we’re guessing you didn’t know about this Smoked Salt Set ($58) from The Meadows. The set contains six 1.2 oz jars packed with some of the most exotic salts on the planet. The salts are then smoked to add…

Products like the Amazon Kindle, Apple iPadand Skiff E-Reader are clearly aimed at putting all those paperbacks you have lying around out of their misery, but what about your cook books? The reality is, none of the current crop of e-readers out on the market are really built to work in the hazardous environment that…

By Guest Writer and Outdoor Enthusiast Sandy Bandu Mountain Science Research is renowned for designing lightweight and efficient camping gear, and as a leader in stove technology the Whisperlite Internationale is arguably their defining product. Used and pushed to the limit by outdoor enthusiasts for over 20 years, the Whisperlite weighs in at under a…

Anyone who has ever hosted a big meal can probably relate to the stress of timing multiple dishes at once. While normally in these situations over-worked cooks might enlist the help of others in the form of “hey remember this time for me, will ya?”, the margin of error for this method could definitely use…

Perfect for the finicky chef in your life or aspiring knife thrower , this knife roll provides protection and a personal touch to a cook’s most precious piece of preparation equipment. How do you like them alliteration apples? Made of water-resistance fabric, this simple pouch has eight reinforced slots for knives, along with separate pockets…

If you or anyone you know enjoys a little kick with their food, these personalized, gallon jugs of Tabasco’s famous hot sauces should have you salivating (or sweating) already. Available in the classic original, as well as their four other popular flavors including chili pepper, chipotle, green pepper, and tongue-scorching habanero, buying one for the…