Best Tech Gifts for the Chef in Your Life
- dec
- 16
What's the best tech gift for a chef? Here are some options that sizzle!
Cooking predates any form of technology, really (unless you count the wheel), but that doesn't mean that you can't get your favorite chef something to bring his or her kitchen into the 21st Century and beyond!
Here are some chef-worthy gift ideas that won't make you roux the day you gave them to the chef in your life.
- Prepara iPrep iPad stand
- Sansaire sous-vide immersion circulator
- Somabar
- FOODsniffer
- Prep Pad
- Smart Crock-Pot (with WeMo)
Prepara iPrep iPad stand
You can't hold your iPad while you cook. It's going to get messy, and I imagine it's pretty difficult to chop carrots or whip crème fraîche.
The Prepara iPrep is a foldable and adjustable iPad stand that comes with a stylus so you don't get the screen all greasy. It won't take up too much counter space, wipes clean pretty easily, and has a 5-year warranty, just in case it stops working as it should.
Sansaire sous-vide immersion circulator
Cooking sous-vide is a great way to prepare a meal without having to watch over it too closely. French for "under vacuum", cooking sous-vide is similar to using a slow cooker. You seal food in airtight plastic bags and submerge them in water.
The Sansaire immersion circulator helps you get the perfect temperature every time so that you can cook food precisely to the perfect doneness. Want a medium rare steak? Cook it sous-vide, use the immersion circulator to monitor temperature and get a beautiful pink steak from edge to edge.
Somabar
The Somabar is just plain cool as hell. It's essentially a robot bartender that mixes drinks based on what you tell it in the Somabar app. You just keep the Soma Pods filled with your favorite alcohol and mixes, and the app will even help you concoct cocktails of your own creation.
This is a Kickstarter that's been funded and available for preorder.
FOODsniffer
If you're like me at all, you sometimes have a hard time figuring out if meat has gone bad or not. If it's funky and discolored, then of course I know, but there's always that awkward window where I'm not quite sure.
The FOODsniffer is like that dude who tested the food for the king to make sure it wasn't poisoned — by detecting the gases associated with rot, it accurately lets you know if the meat, fish, and poultry you're thinking of cooking has gone bad.
The FOODsniffer only detects via gases, and the disclaimer on its website says that it won't be able to discern the presence of bacterial growth, like Salmonella or E. Coli, so if you have week-old chicken, but it's not producing rot gas (by some random act of peculiarity), still chuck it, or be careful at the very least.
Comes in black, white, green, and purple.
Prep Pad
The Prep Pad is the food scale of the future, and it connects to your phone via Bluetooth and the cool Orange Chef app, which gives you a complete nutritional picture of your meal with just a bit of input from you.
If the chef in your life is also a calorie counter or simply wants to start eating more healthily, the Prep Pad is a great tool to help figure out nutrition while cooking.
Smart Crock-Pot (with WeMo)
Who doesn't like coming home to a hot meal at the end of the day? Not having to cook when you get home is the cat's pajamas, and a slow cooker is the perfect to make sure dinner's hot and ready when you are.
Even better, WeMo's app lets you control the Smart Crock-Pot over Wi-Fi, so you can control the temperature and settings while you're away from home. If you're worried that your grub is going to burn, you can even set it to warm or turn it off completely. No more "did I leave the oven on?"