Have you ever used a corkscrew to open a bottle of wine and thought to yourself that there has got to be a better way?

Check out the Waring Pro Cordless Wine Opener.  Made of rubber and stainless steel, this cordless wine opener can remove up to 80 corks in one charge.  A nice feature is that has a removable foil cutter, and also unlike some other wine openers it can open both natural and synthetic corks.  The design is very sleek, although it does remind me a little bit of an electric razor.  However, I think that is outweighed by it being such a cool modern way to open a bottle of wine!

This cordless wine opener would make a great gift as it’s only $39.95 and a neat gadget. For wine lovers, I recommend pairing it with another wine-related gift, like a decanter or a great bottle of wine (I recommend Ultimate Wine Shop for its huge selection).

Have you ever been in someone’s kitchen and seen something that you’ve never seen before?  Check out this item below:

Can you tell what it is?  A silver donut?  A trivet?  An ultra modern light?  A mirror?  Well, it’s actually a WMF Vino Foil Cutter.  Maybe big wine drinkers would have guessed that this item was a Wine Bottle Foil Cutter, but me, not so much! 

If you check out other wine bottle foil Cutters, you’ll see that the WMF is the sexiest in the bunch.  A lot of the others are much bigger and more bulky, and look like you’re using construction tools on your wine bottle .

The WMF is stainless steel with a mirrored finish and has a substantial weight that makes it easy to handle.  According to reviews of it on Amazon.com it sounds like it is super easy to use and looks stylish and sexy on any table or bar.

I love the anticipation of opening a great bottle of wine, but without the Rabbit Wine Shower Funnel , I have to let the wine aerate and sit for twenty minutes to open up. What a disappointment when I have piping hot food at the table ready to go!

Metrokane Rabbit Wine-Shower Funnel

The Metrokane Rabbit Wine Shower Funnel not only aerates the wine but also catches any sediments. And for about twenty dollars, it’s a simple addition to any wine lover’s collection!

Of course, like the image above, the Rabbit Wine Shower Funnel needs to sit in a type of wine decanter or wine carafe like this:

Spiegelau wine decanter

The Spiegelau wine decanter would make any table setting look great and the Metrokane Rabbit Wine Shower Funnel will make your wine taste great!

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Before summer ends I want to make sure I get to go on a picnic.  What better way to celebrate the beautiful warm weather then to sit in a beautiful park or field with a loved one or friend and eat, drink & relax.

I am a fan of the picnic basket pictured above, The Picnic Time Pioneer Picnic Basket , because it comes with everything but the food.  It includes a tablecloth, dishes, wine glasses, utensils, salt & pepper shakers , napkins, and even a cutting board and cheese knife!!

Here is my recommended menu for a lovely lunch time picnic:

-grapes
-brie cheese
-crackers
-raspberry jam
-curried chicken salad
-coleslaw
-three bean salad

For dessert, I’d recommend something like banana bread or lady fingers - desserts without frosting or chocolate so it won’t melt.

Bring along a bottle of white wine or a thermos of lemonade and you should be good to go!

Just make sure you check the weather before you go, nothing spoils a picnic like rain or 100 degree heat!

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Tonight, I’m throwing a party; it’s my best friend’s birthday and we’re doing it big! We want to make sure we have her favorite dirty martini on hand at all times and the only way to make the classic martini at home is to have the proper tools . I got a martini shaker because there’s nothing that says swanky summer night quite like an ice-cold martini with a smattering of olives . And of course, like James Bond says, these drinks need to be shaken not stirred. How appropriately sleek is this Calphalon Martini Shaker ?

Not only will all my drinks be frigid but, I’ll look like a consummate professional. I’ve never been a barkeep or made a cocktail at home so any help is appreciated (even if it is just for looks).

Some of my friends stay away from the liquor so we have lots of great wines for them from BevMo .

I don’t know very much about wine, but I hear using a wine pourer aerates the wine and enhances its flavor. Only the best for my friends!

Thanks to the amazing cooking skills of my wonderful and talented girlfriend, I was able to try the recipe mentioned in my previous post (see photo above). Since I have no cooking skills whatsoever, the only food-related tasks my girlfriend trusts me with are pouring the drinks and doing the dishes (both of which I am very good at having done them extensively in college).

The turkey had a delicious, subtle pinot flavor. The mixed vegetables included broccoli, carrots, snap peas, and water chestnuts (from a Birds Eye Steamfresh bag). Adding in the wine and the iced tea (a green and black tea mix with lemon), we should have had enough polyphenols to keep the malondialdehyde (MDA) at bay. Of course I have no idea whether this worked or not since neither one of us felt like drawing our own blood afterwards. Maybe someday I’ll have the funds to setup a clinical lab in the basement, but for now I’ll just have to trust the scientists on this one. Either way, it tasted good, so I’m considering this experiment a success.

An interesting study was just published in The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Journal that looked at how adding red wine to a meal (by drinking and cooking with it) reduced the after dinner levels of cytotoxic lipid peroxidation products. “Cytotoxic lipid peroxidation products” is just a fancy way of describing some of the harmful byproducts of a diet high in meat and fried foods. One of the theories is that the polyphenols in healthy fruits and vegetables work within the digestive tract by counteracting the effects of bad foods before they are absorbed. The scientists recruited 10 volunteers (4 men and 6 women) and gave them each three versions of a turkey meal. The setup was as follows:

Meal A:
250 g of turkey
glass of water

Meal B:
250 g of turkey soaked in red wine after cooking
200 ml glass of red wine

Meal C:
250 g of turkey soaked in red wine before cooking
200 ml glass of red wine

It was a randomized crossover study which meant that all participants ate all three meals (three weeks apart). Levels of lipid peroxidation in the blood where measured using malondialdehyde (MDA), a carcinogenic initiator associated with the breakdown fats (MDA is known to cause cancer in mice and damage DNA in human cells)

The results of the experiment are shown in the graph below. Soaking the turkey in wine before cooking completely prevented any increase in plasma MDA (see this paper for levels of MDA in different foods). In fact, half of the individuals tested actually lowered their MDA levels below their pre-meal baseline with Meal C. This is good news because it shows how red wine polyphenols can offset some of the cancer risk associated with consumption of meat. It may also suggest that meal times may be the best time to take antioxidant supplements. So if you don’t have time to marinate your meat in red wine before you cook, you could probably get some benefit from drinking red wine with your meal and perhaps taking a few capsules of whole grape extract beforehand.

Incidentally, I’m not sure why they didn’t also test a meal consisting of a glass of red wine and plain turkey, because that’s seems like the most common scenario. I’m also glad the pre-soaked turkey gave the best result because dipping already cooked turkey in wine doesn’t sound very appetizing. Something like this grilled marinated turkey breast sound really good (although I’d recommend substituting steamed asparagus for the fried rice).