If you’re hosting your home team for the Super Bowl, add some splash and panache with a few upgrades to your standard celebration. Here are some gadgets that’ll make a real touchdown for you and guests alike.
For the resident Twitterer: Keep the real-time game commentary flowing online by setting up a sofa-side laptop station. Your aspiring sports show host will be able to tweet or blog throughout the game without losing his or her reach to the nachos. Try the Table Mate II. With adjustable height and tilt, it hovers over your lap while you’re seated and provides a sturdy, generous plastic desk surface. The Table Mate II sells for around $30.
Serve up a fresh, healthy buffet: Variety and volume are key to a game day spread, but food that’s left sitting for more than two hours at room temperature becomes a health risk. So equip your buffet with chafing dishes to keep hot foods at or above 140 degrees, and keep cold foods at or below 40 degrees by nesting dishes in bowls of ice or purchasing servers with built-in ice containers. Frequent replenishing is also preferred: rotate several small platters rather than loading up a few big ones that sit out beyond halftime.
What’s on tap? Don’t hand out cold cans, dude. That’s just lame. This year, get a professional-style beer tap, like the Krups B100 Beertender. It’ll keep beer fresh and crisp all day long, plus a release of Co2 allows for a foamy head o’ brew, pub style. Guests will get a kick out of helping themselves. The Krups B100 Beertender sells for around $100.
Keep a sweet bathroom: There’ll be plenty of traffic in and out of that powder room nearest the television, so consider a motion-sensor air freshener, like the Glade Sense & Spray Automatic Freshener. It detects when someone enters the room and spritzes a refreshing burst of fragrance high into the air to eliminate unpleasant odors. But don’t worry about it going haywire—after motion is detected, the Glade Sense & Spray goes into “lockout” mode, so you won’t hear from it again for another 20 minutes, when it will resume detecting motion. Runs on two AA batteries and comes in an attractive vase-like dispenser. Starter kit includes dispenser, one fragrance refill and two batteries for around $9.
Kitchen clean zone: Believe it or not, kitchens can harbor more bacteria than bathrooms do. Keep yours safe during game day with an arsenal of disinfecting cleaning wipes, antibacterial spray cleaner and sanitizer. To avoid cross-contamination, clean and sanitize food prep areas before and after whipping up additions to the snack buffet. A plump, new roll of paper towels comes in handy for any fumbles, and is a safer alternative for spills than sponges or dishcloths, which only spread germs around.
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