Click To View Slideshow» This gear can enhance your kitchen with the power of technology.
It can be hard to shop for the chefs in your life. You might not know what they already have, what they like, or how well-equipped their kitchen is. The sheer number of cooking gadgets out there is mind-boggling, but most of them are pretty low-tech (and generally fall under the category of As Seen on TV). You can always get some fine German or Japanese steel, or some thick-walled, copper bottom cookware, but that gets very pricey, very quickly.
Or you can go the high-tech route. The cooking supplies here are more gadget-y than your typical grater/peeler/slicer, but they make for excellent gifts. They're handier than a useless kitchen toy or redundant cookware, (usually) much less expensive than high-quality knives or pans, and can make cooking easier, faster, and smarter.
Most of these devices let you monitor or control what you're cooking with your smartphone or tablet. Smart kitchen scales like the Drop and the Orange Chef Co. Prep Pad let you keep track of exactly how much of each ingredient you add to a mix, and the Perfect Bake and Perfect Drink add baking- and bartending-specific recipes and tools. If you want to get into sous vide, Anova's Culinary Precision Cooker lets you control exactly how hot the water is through an app, and the iDevices iGrill Mini does the same for meat on the grill or in the oven. If you want to go full home automation, there's a Crock-Pot slow cooker and a Mr. Coffee machine equipped with Belkin's WeMo technology, which you can tie into your home network. And, of course, there's an iRobot Scooba to mop up anything you spill.
Check out our slideshow for some of the best kitchen gadgets you can get for the cooks in your life.
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