Item 1: Sushezi (Pronounced Sushi-zee) http://www.sushezi.com/ -It's made by a company in Logan.
It's essentially a small plastic mold that helps you make Sushi at home using sushi rice, fish, veggies and seaweed sheets. However, for the segment I'll be bringing in a premade roll of dessert sushi (rice krispy treats wrapped around licorice with a fruit roll up outside. It's available at specialty stores (like Spoons and Spice) for $24.99. Physics and chemistry stuff to chat about including how they puff rice, and how compression holds the sushi together.
Item 2: iSi (pronounced EE-see) Easy Whip - Think of the seltzer water sprayed by the clown in old time movies. It's a similar concept, but uses a NO2 canister to carbonate the contents of the bottle. The thing so handy about this particular product is instead of whipping cream, you can just regular cream in the container, charge it and dispense whipped cream whenever you need it. No whipping required. iSi also makes other whippers great for making other types of foams and batters as well. I had pancakes made from an iSi product that were incredible because instead of adding chemical leavener, the product adds whippiness for you. The Easy Whip is available around Utah at specialty stores and runs around $50.00 for the whipper and $10 for a pack of 10 NO2 chargers. I'll have a charged unit full of cream to show how easy it is. There's a great chemistry angle on tensioactive molecules and viscosity to this product that I'll discuss.
Item 3: Sous Vide Supreme - This is essentially a water oven that allows you to cook meats, fish, veggies under vacuum at a temperature accurate within 0.5 degrees. It runs $449 at Sur La Table, and turns cheap cuts of meat into tenderloin like texture. My plan here is to bring a cheap cut of beef (probably top sirloin or chuck) that is traditionally a stew cut that has been cooked in the Sous Vide Supreme. Since the cooking process never gets to a temperature that will promote browning, the meat will look red/raw. At which point I'll pull out a little fleur de sel for the top of the meat, and a blowtorch and "brown" the meat live on air using the blowtorch. (This actually works REALLY well at browning the meat). As a finale, I'll go back to item 2 and add a bacon foam that I've prepared in an iSi container for a non standard version of a filet mignon for the host to try. I guarantee it will be hands down the best piece of beef our lucky host has ever eaten. SOOOO much to talk about this including the chemistry of meat, how protein denatures, how cooking at a specific temperature impacts the texture and flavor of the meat.
Item 4: Microplane Gourmet Grater and Gourmet Ultra Coarse Grater - two great ways to get a restaurant quality grade. $16.99 for the Parmesan Grater, and $19.99 for the Ultra Course Grater. Both will be available in stores in July
Item 5: Friis Coffee Saver. This product from a Utah based company takes into account the way that coffee beans put off Carbon Dioxide after they have been roasted, eventually causing the degradation of the bean. The Friis valve releases the CO2, but keeps the flavor of the coffee in. $22 at
