Gadgets: Instant Read Thermometer

I've seen a lot of "If you were on a desert island" articles lately. You know the ones. They ask celebrities or someone of the street, "If you were stranded on a desert island and could only have three "blanks," what would they be?" The blanks might be everything from things on your IPod (Guess that means you have an IPod on said desert island.) to books to people. I've recently seen the same question asked of chefs, both amateur and professional, and it got me thinking. What are the things I couldn't do without in the kitchen? Pantry ingredients? (Like these.) Gadgets.?References/cookbooks?

So I'm going to start posting some of them. My post two days ago about roast chicken made me realize I can't live without my instant-read thermometer. This one from Williams-Sonoma.

It takes the guesswork out of cooking all kinds of meats. Lets you cook pork to done without drying it out. Ditto for chicken. Allows you to grill a steak to a perfect medium-rare. And the "alert" feature measures rate of cooking, does the math and lets you know how much more cooking time you have left. Means you can make sure everything is ready at the same time. Even if your grill is acting up or your oven is overheating.

Armed with this thermometer, you can take much of the guesswork out of roasting and grilling, leaving your energies free to concoct marinades and sauces. It's well worth the investment.