By Chris Scott Barr

When I think of camping, I imagine pitching a tent somewhere in the middle of nowhere and cooking food over an open fire. Of course, some people have a vastly different idea about camping. I’m talking about the people who pull up in a Winnebago with a stocked fridge, and hoist an antennae so that they can catch the race later. If your idea is somewhere in-between these, then you might be interested in the WaveBox.

Rather than relying on a campfire to heat your meals, the WaveBox allows you to nuke your food, just like you would back home. This “portable” microwave is going to require you to be near an outlet, or at the very least, your car. Most people will opt for the latter, in which case you’ll probably want to hook it directly to your car’s battery for maximum power. At just over $200, this microwave will either make you the envy of your camping buddies, or will get you kicked out of the tent.

[ WaveBox ] VIA [ Technabob ]

By Andrew Liszewski

While it might be designed to “suit Koreans’ tastes” Samsung’s new Zipel combines a traditional oven, a microwave and a steamer into a single compact appliance that could revolutionize every dorm room around the world, and force the hot plate into extinction. But it doesn’t stop at being able to cook almost anything, including healthy dishes. The Zipel is also voice activated and includes a combination of 160 different cooking settings that covers pretty much anything you could think of, from popcorn to mac and cheese. It runs just under $600 for the full-on version, though there’s also a steamless model for just $250. Now if Samsung throws in a couple of milk crates to use as a stand, in no time it will have a monopoly on the college market.

[ AVING USA - Samsung Electronics, releases new product 'Zipel oven' to satisfy Koreans' tastes ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Sometimes the most interesting gadgets can be the simple ones. Take for instance this Tapi Tap Squeeze Drink Fountain. There are no fancy electronic components or mechanical parts to be found here. Just one piece of very specifically-crafted rubber.

This simple product turns almost any household faucet into a water fountain with just a squeeze. It fits snugly over your existing faucet (and comes in a variety of colors to suit your tastes) and allows water to flow freely as usual. However, when you want a drink, just give it a squeeze and a stream will shoot upwards, allowing you to reach the water without sticking your head in the sink. I can see this being great in bathrooms, for late-night drinks and rinsing your mouth out after brushing your teeth. You can pick these up for just $5 each.

[ DreamFarm ] VIA [ CoolestGadgets ]

By Chris Scott Barr

The iPad is a useful device, what with that nice big touchscreen and all. One place it can come in handy is your kitchen. Imagine not needing to print off (or write down) recipes for your favorite meals. Just set down your iPad, and open up an app that has them all listed. But you don’t want to just leave your iPad sitting on the counter, it could get in the way, and might be harder to read that way. Instead, you could just simply mount it to your fridge.

The Woodford FridgePad is exactly the kind of iPad stand that you need to mount your iPad to your fridge. Since it relies on a few magnets to keep itself in place, you can just as easily mount it to anything made of metal this way. Look for it on sale in the next couple of months for around $75.

[ Woodford ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Besides blowing your friends’ minds with your ability to jam a straw through a metal or plastic bottle cap, this BottleBob punch should also stop that nasty habit straws have of floating up and out of a bottle filled with a carbonated beverage. Using it is as easy as placing the punch on top of any bottle and jamming down the plunger to pierce a perfect straw-sized hole in the cap, but I have to wonder where that small disc of metal or plastic ends up afterwards? $21 available from Epaulet, and I assume it’s also good for emergency tracheotomies.

[ BottleBob Bottle Cap Punch ] VIA [ bad banana blog ]

By Andrew Liszewski

The Epicurious app is pretty much a must have for iPad owners who like to cook, but just because they like to get their hands dirty in the kitchen, doesn’t mean they want their electronics to be. So instead of turning to the internet for random cooking information like measurement conversions, cooking, roasting or defrosting times and even a glossary, they can simply flip up this quick reference apron, which has useful information like that silk screened on the bottom. And if it gets dirty, you can just throw it in the wash instead of trying to convince the genius at the Apple Bar that when you removed your new iPad from the box it was covered in cake batter. Coming soon from SUCK UK.

[ Apron Cooking Guide ] VIA [ ChipChick ]

By Andrew Liszewski

When warm weather rolls around my addiction to frozen treats is rekindled, particularly Freezies, but the 6-year-old inside of me still hates having to wait for them to actually freeze before I can enjoy them. But that’s the one place where the Quick Pop Maker from Zoku shines, since it can turn any delicious concoction you fill it with into a frozen treat in as little as 7 minutes. Now unfortunately the pop maker has to spend about 24 hours in your freezer before its first use to work as claimed, but after that there should be minimal turnaround in turning your culinary experiments into frozen pops.

Parents will probably like it because they can control what’s going into each pop, and even add party crashers like actual pieces of fruit, but the rest of us will enjoy spending the Summer trying to push the limits of what can be blended, frozen and enjoyed on a plastic stick. The whole kit, which comes with everything you’ll need to create 3 pops at a time, minus the ingredients, is available from Williams-Sonoma for $49.95, and while that’s definitely more expensive than dixie cups and popsicle sticks, just remember your homebrew method won’t be producing delicious results in less than 10 minutes.

[ Zoku Quick Pop Maker ] VIA [ Cool Hunting ]

By Andrew Liszewski

While it might look like a brain-bending puzzle, Mia Schmallenbach’s Meeting Knives set actually features a brilliant design allowing four different kitchen knives: a paring knife, a carving knife, a chef’s knife and a filleting knife to all stack inside each other on a single block of steel. The proportions of each knife were apparently determined by the Fibonacci sequence, a term I haven’t heard since my high school computer science classes, but the results are far from looking like they were designed by a mathematician.

And thankfully, this is one of those times when a cool looking product is actually available for sale. The Meeting Knives set is produced by Deglon out of France, and I managed to find an Australian website called Table Direct that is selling the set for about $920. I’ve also found a slightly more affordable version that comes with a wooden base instead, available from Chef Studio Boutique for about $483.

[ Mia Schmallenbach - Meeting Knives ] VIA [ I New Idea ]

By Chris Scott Barr

When you go to wash your hands, the first thing you generally do is turn on the faucet. Since your hands are already dirty, then you’re just going to get the faucet dirty as well. Now not only do you have to wash your hands, but the sink as well. Wouldn’t it be great if you could turn on the water without touching anything?

Designer Jasper Dekker has been thinking along these lines and crafted a faucet that is controlled with a wave of the hand. The Spatial Interaction allows you to not only turn it on and off, but shift the temperature without even touching it.  Convenient, and clean. Now all we have to do is wait for this concept to become a reality.

[ JasperDekker ] VIA [ CoolestGadgets ]