We are pleased to announce our partnership with OpenSky to bring you products we enjoy through our very own online store. We will provide you firsthand information on products and recommend only those that we use and find worthy of telling you about. Hope you like it! And thank you for your support, friends!

I know I do! Sure, in some supermarkets in the US selling liquor, they have those wine chillers so you can cool your wine before hitting the checkout counter. However, if you’re home and you already have your room-temperature bottle of wine, it would be a hassle to go out just to buy some wine. And if you’re like me who have impulse cravings for wine that doesn’t leave enough time to chill anything (and don’t own a wine chiller), that puts a damper on saying yes to instant gratification.

That’s where ravi comes in! ravi is an “instant wine refresher”. I prefer to call it my enabler of instant wine gravification. I just have to take out the inner cartridge out of the freezer, assemble the unit in two snaps and place on the mouth of the bottle of my preferred wine and I’m good to go!

ravi looks like the cartridge of a faucet tap water purifier, and is almost the same size. Yes, the liquid passes through it as it’s being cooled down. Instead of cooling the bottle, wine is being cooled as it’s poured. It doesn’t change the flavor in any way.

I put it to the test with a bottle of red wine. The wine’s original temperature is 25°C, as you can see here.

I took out the ravi cartridge out of the freezer and set it up as indicated. The first two glasses I poured registered an almost 10-degree drop in temperature right there. You will see that even after 30 and 60 minutes, ravi was still able to hold the chill and cooled the wine to about 17°C. That’s pretty good, I think. I drank the wine at the “start” and “ravi” temperatures and they difference is noticeable.

I mentioned above that ravi has a valve that you can block with a thumb. This valve controls the flow of liquid through the  cooling tube. The principle is simple: slow down the flow and the liquid stays in longer, thus chilling it longer. Based on experience, I didn’t have to do this for the first 3 glasses. It cooled down quite nicely to a nice 15°C.

The possibilities are endless: you can use ravi for red, white, or rose wines. Just like your ice cream maker bucket, you can place it in the freezer and forget about it until you need it. I put the cartridge in a resealable sandwich bag in the freezer door. Cleanup is a breeze–just rinse and dry the internal tubing with the included pump.

I can definitely see this coming to potlucks (at private residences) for instant wine chilling, and placed in a tiny cooler, or even in those lined keep-frozen bags when traveling. As a self-confessed “girl scout” who brings whatever may be needed, this is another great gadget to have on hand!

We have partnered with OpenSky to bring products that we love to you, our dear readers. We do earn a small portion of each sale made through our store, but we will never recommend products we’ve never tried or don’t believe in. That much we can promise you.

If you like this product, you can purchase it here right now for USD$40. If you order anytime between today and August 16 and use the coupon code FREESHIPPING, you’ll get free shipping!

A friend and I recently had a chat about kitchen appliances and tools, what our essentials are and which are “nice to have” but would just end up in the dark corners of the drawers, and what we still “wish” for. As we grow older, it’s not just the clothes and shoes we couldn’t get enough of — domesticity has intruded our shopping domain for sure.

We both agreed that there are two things we keep thinking of needing and buying: a mandolin and a timer. I know what you’re thinking: What, you don’t have a timer?! Isn’t it silly? I rely on the stove timer. We have a toaster oven, a digital thermometer, digital scale, ice cream maker, but no, not a timer. Have I lost you already? Please don’t shut me out. Haha.

As our conversation progressed into a more elaborate list of things that are more for wants than needs, I suddenly remembered one of the thing that we’ve kept putting off to buy: the (big) food processor [I love that the site explains the difference between a blender and a food processor]. Sigh. Always more stuff, isn’t it?

Just curious — What’s currently on your kitchen appliance/gadget/tool wishlist?

You’re more than free to tell me you don’t have a timer, too. :-D

Things have been slow here because of bodily aches and pains (the perks of working in front of the computer for too long). I haven’t cooked anything this week because of ‘em. Dan has been such a good sport — cooking the other night and cleaning up after. Ahhh…what good life! Haha.

Having been deprived of cooking and currently stuck with the inability to knead dough for my next projects — soft pretzels and bagels — I have to satisfy my food and kitchen quota somehow.

Yesterday afternoon, after a full day of running around to figure out all these aches that I shouldn’t be feeling till I’m twice as old, I succumbed to the devil’s hiss of window shopping. While waiting for Dan to get out of work, I found myself at our usual stop: Williams-Sonoma. I drooled over the KitchenAid stand mixer that I really shouldn’t get right now, and ended up buying cute (and huge!) kitchen towels.

Don’t the citrus colors make you smile? [Just roll with the sick one 'ere. Haha] I just couldn’t leave the store without them! :-)

Now it’s your turn to spill — What have you purchased for your kitchen lately? What indulgence did you allow yourself?

Speaking of, I want some chocolate pudding pie now.

Right, right…I gotta go. I was advised less computer time. Ciao!

** Note:  This is not a sponsored post. I wish.  Do you hear me, Williams-Sonoma?!? :-)

Things are busy here as it’s tax season, and with mommy and daddy filing their taxes for personal and their respective businesses, posting is a wee bit slower than usual. They’ve also been going out to see friends, which is always a good thing. The cocoa brownies weren’t posted as anticipated– our sincere apologies for those who are waiting.

Last week’s fares here at Gourmeted are:

• Lengua Estofada (Braised Beef Tongue) - A Filipino delicacy of beef tongue cooked in tomato based sauce. A toast to offal lovers.
• Pancake Breakfast with the Help of The Scale – Teddy helps daddy test out the new kitchen scale to make delicious pancakes. It’s a great new addition to our kitchen!
• How We Take Food Photos Part I: Tools and Equipment – The first of many in the series on food photography. Come and join us in our quest to take better photos of food!
• Dorie’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies - Awesome chocolate chip cookies from a recipe that our friend, Patricia, posted about. Yumm!

Things we loved from neighboring food sites:

• Ben’s French Bread – Beautiful homemade bread that we wish we can make someday.
• Michelle’s Pretty Good for Now Buttermilk Biscuits – She’s still on the quest to find The One biscuit recipe, but this looks great to us! If you have a phenomenal biscuit recipe, come on over there and let her know…help a fellow foodie out.
• Elle’s Oven Baked Hooters Style Buffalo Wings – Need I say more? Can’t wait to try this with our Spicy Garlic Sauce

What’s up this week? Take a peek:

• Review of Sauce restaurant
• Part II of How We Take Food Photos: The Grey Card
• Ultimate Cinnamon Rolls

That’s it for now. Have a great week everyone. And happy eating!

Over the weekend, Joy and I had our share of visiting friends. When I was waiting for her at the local outlet mall, I decided to pick up a digital kitchen scale. If it were not for Alton Brown and his several episodes about weights and volume and the flour test, I would have been none the wiser to the value of this contraption. My brother-in-Law’s brother uses his scale to measure out his meal portions and he says he’s sticking to it. So I picked one up and then I realized what the first meal prepared with this scale would be. Breakfast.

It was 12:05 on Sunday afternoon, so you know what that means; its breakfast time! Please join me and my assistant Teddy in making this breakfast perfect.
Continue Reading

Say hello to the smidgen, pinch, and dash measuring spoons:

We found it at Whole Foods. Finally. I’ve read about it but had not seen it until last night. I was tickled pink. :-)

Happy Super Bowl day everyone!