Fred and Friends has some neat kitchen products coming out in March and April.  I’m really digging the Pac-Man Hothead oven mitt.

French Toast™ – It’s the toast of Paris
Just stamp your baguette, pop it in le toaster, and suddenly your relaxing along the Champs Elysées. French Toast is parfait – know what I’m Seine? Packed on peggable blisters.

Pizza Boss 3000™ – Let’ Er Rip!
Real Men™ don’t use wimpy dime-store pizza cutters. Show that pizza you mean business with our new Pizza Boss 3000. It’ll blast thru pepperoni, extra cheese, even …

By STUART ELLIOTT
Published: February 22, 2009
New York Times – IT took 24 years, but PepsiCo now has its own version of New Coke.
The PepsiCo Americas Beverages division of PepsiCo is bowing to public demand and scrapping the changes made to a flagship product, Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice. Redesigned packaging that was introduced in early January is being discontinued, executives plan to announce on Monday, and the previous version will be brought back in the next month.
Also returning will be the longtime Tropicana brand symbol, an orange from which …

Snapple beverages are going through a bit of surgery.  Those recognizable labels that we have grown to love are hitting the road, giving way to a hipper, more modern look.  Externally, the bottles will be changing shape to better fit cup holders and the labels will be revamped with new fonts and color schemes.
Perhaps the most significant change is in the formula.  The company will be replacing the high fructose corn syrup with sugar.  I’m not sure of what the reason for the change is.  Maybe it’s due to the …

You’re chopping vegetables and you mistake your finger for one of the carrots.  But it’s all good because you finally have an excuse to use your bacon bandages (assuming you didn’t chop off your finger)!  Each tin holds fifteen slabs of latex-free bacon bandages and there’s a free toy trinket inside to help you get your mind off the pain.  Bacon bandages and a  free toy?  Everybody wins!
Get yours from Amazon

Hammacher Schlemmer, sellers of all things useful, not-so-useful, and useless, has some brand spanking new products for your kitchen.

First up, the Automatic Vacuum Sealing Food Preserver.  I have to admit, this seems to be a promising product.  When the lid is closed, the oxygen is sucked out of the container and it preserves the food, along with its flavor and nutrition, for up to three weeks.  A pressure of 16mbar is maintained and air moisture is reduced to prevent any mold growth.  It’s about the size of a breadbox and …

I certainly could’ve used this on Monday night when I had my small dinner party.  I cooked five dishes, four of which are served hot.  By the time we all sat down to eat, most of the food items were approaching the warm to lukewarm state, and half an hour later, cold.  My friends didn’t mind it as they loved the food and managed to eat everything except the plates.  As the host though, I thought I should have worked on the plating logistics better to make sure the food …

The Today Show presented some of America’s Test Kitchen’s favorite gadgets for 2009. My favorites are the automatic wine opener and the can opener.

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One up your kitchen germ warfare arsenal with the germ eliminating knife block.  It just takes 20 seconds for the UV-C light to eradicate 99.99% of the food bacteria and viruses from your cutlery.  You can set your mind at ease at its effectiveness because it uses the same technology that hospitals use to kill surface bacteria on instruments.  Good enough for an operating room, good enough for the kitchen.
This high-tech kitchen gadgetry will cost you $39.95
Hammacher Schlemmer via DVice

Pepsi Max has a new advertising campaign out, and it’s not bright, loud, and cheerful. When I first saw these three images, I figured the advertising company campaigning the product took some cues from the bunny suicides. In the images, the ‘one very very very lonely calorie,’ depicted by a blue bean-shape blob, is taking suicide to the extreme. The artwork is well drawn and it conveys a sense of melancholy. I don’t know what kind of reaction the advertising company is trying to invoke …

As I was at Macy’s over the weekend, I walked by an interesting round and shiny object.  Since my curiosity got the better of me, I put my gear in reverse and trekked back to it.  The product was the Circulon Induction Burner.  If the word induction sounds familiar, you probably heard it from the Electrolux Induction Cooktop commercials starring Kelly Ripa, who claims that the induction burner can boil water in 90 seconds (but how much water?).  In a nutshell, induction cooking uses electromagnetic energy that heats the pan …