It's that time of year again- - outdoor eating season.  For the serious backyard culinary enthusiast, having your own smoker to enhance your eating and barbecuing experience is the ultimate thing. For that great smokehouse flavor at home, nothing beats a portable unit. One that doesn't take up a lot of space and can get the smoking job done just right is smokehouse heaven in a little box. While great for indoors, these smokers can add to the eating festivities for outdoor summer gatherings.

Bradley Technologies believes they have the product to do just that. Their Original Bradley Smoker is an at-home smokehouse, the size of one of those typical portable refrigerators. It allows for efficient smoking of food in a self-contained environment.

This insulated smokehouse uses bisquettes, which you buy separately. The Bradley Smoker has these hardwood flavor bisquettes fit into the side holder of the unit. These bisquettes then feed into the Smoke Generator producing the exact amount and quality of smoke that the unit requires to give the food inside optimum smoke flavor. Upon the using up of one bisquette, and the extinguishing of it, another one feeds through the system to provide a continuous smoking. These flavor bisquettes burn for 20 minutes each, at a consistent temperature. It's a clean smoke and means you don't have to worry about high temperature gases, acids, and resins that can alter smoked food taste. The bisquette system is simple and automatic.

The Bradley Smoker can produce continuous smoke for up to eight hours without needing attending to by anyone. The heating element is controllable which means you can use the smoker as a slow-roaster or a slow cooker.

The Original Bradley Smoker comes with four cooking racks. The exterior of this smoker is epoxy steel. The interior is aluminum and fully insulated. The unit weighs approximately 40 lbs. and comes with a recipe book included. It has a 500-watt cooking element and a 125-watt smoking element. It runs on 120 volts with a 240-volt model available. The temperature is controllable up to a temperature of 320 F. The unit also comes with a rectangular tray and drip bowl.

When you want to smoke food in any way, this device from Bradley allows for a low-temperature cooking environment that is also suitable for drying fruit. You can get those dates, apricots, banana slices, and the like and make up your own dried-fruit concoction for healthy snacking.

If smoked foods tickle your taste buds and you want to control the process on your own, the Original Bradley Smoker can help you do that. You can experiment with different temperatures and smoking times to get the food just the way you want it. No longer do you have to rely on smoked products from a store that may not be to your liking. Here you're the master smoker extraordinaire. The Original Bradley Smoker allows you to have a smokin' good time the home cookin' way.

Posted by Mike.

This is quite possibly the weirdest online sale ever.  Recently, a pair of young sisters (ages 23 and 15) listed a cornflake shaped like the state of Illinois on e-bay and, here’s the kicker. . .it SOLD for $1,350.00!  The buyer owns a trivia website and purchased the flake to add to his collection of "pop culture and Americana items" that will eventually become part of a traveling museum.

News reports state he will send someone personally to Virginia to pick up the flake to avoid any damage that could be caused by shipping.  The sisters are excited and plan to use the money for a family vacation.  Good for them!

I have to say that I don’t examine my food closely enough that I would have caught this one. LOL The news reports also say this same individual buyer previously purchased the world’s largest cornflake. Unfortunately, it broke into four pieces during shipping, making it unremarkable.  This explains his caution with the delivery of this one. I wonder how much he paid for the other one?

This just goes to show that just when you think you’ve heard it all and nothing else can surprise you, breakfast cereal wins big.  Got something you think is strange that you’re tempted to auction online?  Give it a try.  Chances are, if you list it, they will bid.

Posted by Jennifer.

I've been hearing quite a number of ads on the radio lately encouraging people to try a unique and personal gift idea - naming a star. 

I scratch my head as I wonder exactly who came up with it.  I’m sure there are those out there who were ecstatic to discover this option in their gift-giving universe.  They are some of the same people who send you a card at Christmas saying they donated to the Human Society in lieu of sending you a gift.  I’m not saying that is always bad.  For some of our more distant friends or acquaintances, it is a nice gesture that they did anything for us at all. . .and a nice tax write-off for them. 

The star thing has me a bit puzzled, however.  From what I can tell, the process goes a bit like this:  You pick a 'star package' depending on how you want to make your presentation.  Most of these include a certificate of some kind, some an actual plaque, depending on price.  Then the star naming folks select a star from the night sky and 'dedicate' or name it for your gift recipient.

The certificate usually includes the location of the star and the name you gave it, along with a personalized message.  The websites who offer this service clearly state that you are not actually purchasing a star because they don’t own them, nor will astronomers or any official government agencies actually recognize the star as yours.  It is basically a nice gesture for a price. 

While I find the practice sort of corny, I can’t help wishing I’d been the one to come up with it.  Think about it, these companies are basically selling something that they didn’t have to purchase and making quite a lot at it.  As for me, if the urge to name a star should strike me, I will simply walk onto my back porch, pick a star from the sky and say "I shall call you George".

Posted by Jennifer.