You know the Top Chef sets were seriously outfitted for the Top Chef Masters shows. You don't turn that crowd loose in a kitchen and not give them the good stuff. Mark Peel, Campanile chef-owner and recent Top Chef Masters alum, says that in addition to a fully-stocked kitchen and a few Pacojets and all the liquid nitrogen they might require, they had one of these nifty gadgets: an Anti-Griddle. It may look like the Xerox machine in your office, but it's actually a traditional cooktop that freezes instead of cooks. The one-square-foot surface quickly freezes sauces and purees to minus 30°F. The machine was created for Grant Achatz of Alinea in 2004 by PolyScience, a Chicago industrial-lab-equipment manufacturer.

No, it is not part of the Glad family of products. But you can buy one (for $1,118) on eBay.

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