Turkey Day ---} Techie Day

November 24, 2008 11:17 AM

It's a geek Thanksgiving! On Here & Now, Instructables' Christy Canida shares tools for organizing Thanksgiving dinner - Gantt chart, purchasing calculator, kitchen workstation for workflow management, stastical analysis of turkey cooking, and more. You'll also find results of their Take Thanksgiving to the Next Level contest, like the giant fractal pecan pie, the 20-sided pie-cosahedron, and the recirculating gravy fountain.
posted by Miko (29 comments total)

I love this post sooooooooo much!
posted by TungstenChef at 11:35 AM on November 24, 2008

Oh god. Why?
posted by Tehanu at 11:42 AM on November 24, 2008

This is exactly... exactly what the Internet is for. Hilarious.
posted by rokusan at 11:43 AM on November 24, 2008

Oh yes, I want a gravy fountain. Or better yet, a third faucet.
posted by RussHy at 11:46 AM on November 24, 2008

The 20-sided pie-cosahedron had an ad right under the pic when I clicked on it. The ad said "How I lost 1lb per day".

Step 1 is probably not "bake pie-cosahedron".
posted by gurple at 12:01 PM on November 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

This post does not disappoint the way some things on the Internet do, with deliberately misleading headlines like "Turkey launches rocket attack."
posted by steef at 12:04 PM on November 24, 2008

I was disappointed by that giant fractal pecan pie - i was hoping for a pie you could dive into, swimming down into its depths and taking great sweet mouthfuls of sticky pecan, again and again and again and woah, this thing just goes on forever!!!
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:10 PM on November 24, 2008

the key component of a gravy fountain is a gravy pump

*weeps with joy*

nothing quite like a gurgling stream of gravy

Amen
posted by burnfirewalls at 12:13 PM on November 24, 2008

Just looking at the still picture of the gravy fountain, and the steam rising from it, makes me want to vomit.
posted by 517 at 12:15 PM on November 24, 2008

I feel like if you're going to go through the effort to build a gravy fountain, you should maybe make it look good. It's an admirable idea, but that thing sort of looks like a faucet attached to a sandy well. A steaming, sandy well.

I don't want to be the jackass to say, "I could do it better," because frankly, I don't have the single-minded determination, but if I did... I could do it better.

Many homebrewers totally have this technology already, although I'd imagine that most of them wouldn't want to contaminate their pumps and tubing with gravy.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:23 PM on November 24, 2008

Or better yet, a third faucet.

A third faucet that delivers nothing but gravy...
posted by rand at 12:33 PM on November 24, 2008

This is exactly why I chose to spend Thanksgiving at Frank's.
posted by not_on_display at 12:33 PM on November 24, 2008

"Recirculating gravy fountain" sounds like one of the Red Meat strip mottos.
posted by Iosephus at 12:59 PM on November 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

The pies are pretty awesome. I've always been partial to Menger Sponge Cake though. It's just so light and airy.
posted by boo_radley at 1:07 PM on November 24, 2008

Yeah, I love gravy, but I don't think it's improved by constant aeration.
posted by GuyZero at 1:13 PM on November 24, 2008

Where's the tool that instructs us on how to keep my wife's grandmother from going on and on about how much the country is screwed because Obama won the presidency? I think a simple hammer will do, but I would love charts and graphs to solidify that thinking...
posted by educatedslacker at 1:29 PM on November 24, 2008

pie are triangled?
posted by owtytrof at 1:31 PM on November 24, 2008

Where's the tool that instructs us on how to keep my wife's grandmother from going on and on...

Some gentlemen in Scotland make a very fine tool for this. There are also American manufacturers and, although it's possible, I don't recommend that you make your own.
posted by uncleozzy at 1:46 PM on November 24, 2008

I believe the Coulton lyric "One badass fucking fractal" definitely applies here.
posted by Medieval Maven at 1:48 PM on November 24, 2008

Uncleozzy, booze does not keep a Grandma quiet. Oh, no it most certainly does not.
posted by longsleeves at 2:47 PM on November 24, 2008

booze does not keep a Grandma quiet

The booze isn't for Grandma. Duh.
posted by uncleozzy at 3:27 PM on November 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

Unfortunately, I misread that as "Inscrutables' Christy Candida".
posted by ...possums at 4:26 PM on November 24, 2008

Somebody needs to mount a turkey gargoyle on the gravy fountain such that the gravy issues forth from its granite beak.

O fountain of gravy, why are you so delicious?
posted by ...possums at 4:30 PM on November 24, 2008

There should be a companion piece, as well: a goose gargoyle disgorging a fountain of paté.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:21 PM on November 24, 2008

a goose gargoyle disgorging a fountain of paté.

An endless fountain of pate would end up looking too much like tubgirl for my, or anybody's, tastes.
posted by GuyZero at 5:24 PM on November 24, 2008

actually, a tubgirl fountain of chocolate gelato would be perfect for the Coogee Bay Hotel.
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:25 PM on November 24, 2008

The booze isn't for Grandma.

Don't try to tell her that.
posted by longsleeves at 7:25 PM on November 24, 2008

Somewhat related, if we have the technology (and the will) to do something like this, why does the future look so bleak?
posted by Restless Day at 3:41 AM on November 25, 2008

Great post. Certainly beats hearing about deep fried turkeys yet again! The fractal pecan pie is particularly impressive.

517: Just looking at the still picture of the gravy fountain, and the steam rising from it, makes me want to vomit.

Yeah, it's certainly evocative of another infamous internet pic that prominently features a brown fountain of liquid...
posted by mkultra at 8:35 AM on November 25, 2008