Your food is ready!

"Your food is ready!" I just heard another woman in my kitchen, and she is VERY excited that our food is ready. VERY. And she keeps repeating, quite emphatically, that our food is ready...so I think we better listen.

I love kitchen gadgets. I have slicers and dicers, tools that do it all, and tools that do only one thing. And I love them all. This gadget, though, is for my husband, "the mystical grill master" of the Fox household. I think we've found the mother of all meat thermometers. And she is VERY excited that our food is ready.

My husband is an excellent griller. He has the most amazing recipes for seafood, steaks, pork and chicken. His dishes always came out juicy and flavorful. That is, until he met the likes of me. Svelte food has some challenges, you see. It isn't marbled with fat, sealed with skin, or basted with butter. My ribeye-loving grill master now faces the daily challenges of sirloin steaks and boneless, skinless chicken breasts. My father-in-law jokes that he's going to take me to the store and show me that a chicken has other parts, but I'm not buying it. And I'm pretty sure he's not joking at all.

So what is a grill master to do? We've tried different timing, different basting, different flipping and different heat levels. Nothing seemed to work. It was hit or miss, but the meat came out dry and overcooked more often than not. Then, on a whim, I bought one of those wireless meat thermometers for my gadget-loving guy. It's the kind you can take all over the house and it will beep when the food reaches the correct temperature. This thing will never work, I thought, but it'll be fun to play with. But it did work. It worked like a charm. Our steaks are juicy and we no longer have chicken jerky! We're now firm believers that cooking food based on temperature -- whether on the grill, stove or oven -- is the best way for us to enjoy our lean meats without sacrificing flavor or overcooking.

"Your food is ready!!" Little did I know, this gadget talks. And she is quite friendly and excited. Not like the woman on the GPS, who is quite matter-of-fact. No, this meat probe lady is VERY excited that our food is ready!