Patent Application
20160338533
The present invention is generally directed to cooking apparatus and, more particularly, to glow-in-the dark apparatus for holding a food item during cooking, especially when grilling or toasting the food over a flame.
Grilling food over an open flame is a popular activity, especially during the warmer months of the year. When food is cooked over a flame, the food must be supported with an apparatus or tool, so that the user does not get burned. For example, charcoal grills usually include a grate that supports the food, such as steak or hamburgers, over the burning coals. A grill basket may be placed on the grate to support vegetables over the coals. In another example, marshmallows and hotdogs are often cooked over an open wood fire by skewering them with a long stick and then holding them over the fire. Many metal skewers, toasting forks, hinged hamburger holders and grill baskets are known in the art, as are bamboo skewers and sticks collected from shrubs in the area surrounding the fire.
Night time campfire activities, including grilling, are popular with groups, such as scouting groups, youth groups, and the like. If a skewer used for such grilling is dropped, it may be difficult to find in the dark and may be damaged or cause injury by bodily contact with the point of an unseen skewer.
The present invention provides a skewer with a glowing handle portion, for use when holding food over an open wood or charcoal fire for cooking.
The present invention is directed to embodiments of a skewer for holding a food item and comprising: an elongated body with opposite ends and a cover ensleeved over an end of the body, the cover including a material having enhanced visibility in darkness. The sleeve may be closed at one end to form a cap which is received over an end of the skewer. The skewer typically has one end which is pointed or sharpened to enable the skewer to pierce a food item. The sleeve may be dimensioned so that it can be received over the pointed end of the skewer to prevent undesired contact therewith or, alternatively, over an unpointed end of the skewer during use while grilling, roasting, toasting, or generally cooking a food item over a campfire. The material having enhanced visibility in darkness may be a phosphorescent material capable of glowing in the dark.
The skewer is a thin, elongate rod or shaft with a sharp, pointed first end and an unpointed second end that is covered by the high visibility sleeve. The skewer rod is long and thin with a sharpened first end that is used to pierce the food. Once the food is pierced, it is pushed onto the rod, so that it will be supported by the rod body. The rod is sufficiently long and rigid that a person using the skewer can hold the food over the fire without a significant risk of being burned. The skewer sleeve may function as a grip for holding the rod and an optional cover for the pointed first end. For children, the high visibility, or glow-in-the-dark, sleeve makes the cooking activity more fun. For adults, the skewer provides convenience, since the skewers are pre-made and can be purchased and stored for later use. Further, the skewer improves safety by increasing illumination at night and by eliminating concerns associated with accidentally using a toxic stick found outdoors, such as an oleander branch, as a grilling or toasting skewer. Additionally, the high visibility, particularly phosphorescent, sleeve makes a dropped skewer easier to find in the dark.
Other objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein are set forth, by way of illustration and example, certain embodiments of this invention.
The drawings constitute a part of this specification and include exemplary embodiments of the present invention and illustrate various objects and features thereof.
As required, detailed embodiments of the present invention are disclosed herein; however, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the invention, which may be embodied in various forms. Therefore, specific structural and functional details disclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as a basis for the claims and as a representative basis for teaching one skilled in the art to variously employ the present invention in virtually any appropriately detailed structure.
Referring now to
The illustrated skewer assembly 5 includes a skewer body 15 and a high visibility cover or cap 20 ensleeved over a portion of the skewer body 15. The body 15 is a rod or shaft which is sized and shaped to receive the food 10 thereon, so as to enable a user to support the food 10 away from his body. Accordingly, the skewer body 15 is an elongated rod, which may have a length of at least three feet (or about one meter). The illustrated skewer body 15 has a longitudinal axis A that extends from a first or unpointed end 25 to a second or pointed end 30. A cross-section of the skewer body 15, perpendicular to the longitudinal axis A, may be circular, oval, or rectangular and is typically circular. The skewer body 15 may be formed of wood, metal, a polymer, or a combination thereof, as is known in the art. For example, the body 15 may be formed of a long, thin wooden dowel. Preferred woods may include bamboo, birch, white birch, maple, oak, or the like.
The unpointed first end 25 of the skewer body 15 is illustrated as blunt or rounded (see
The illustrated cover or cap 20 is a sleeve-like tubular member or tube 40 formed of a material which is light emitting or which has enhanced visibility in darkness. The enhanced visibility material may be highly reflective or may b retroreflective, that is, strongly reflective toward a light source which illuminates it. Additional information about retroreflective materials can be found in U. S. Pat. Nos. 2,326,634 and 5,738,746, which are incorporated herein by reference. Alternatively, the enhanced visibility material may be phosphorescent which, when exposed to light, slowly re-emits the light. The cover 20 formed of such a material produces a glow when in darkened conditions, as is diagrammatically indicated in
The illustrated cover 20 includes a longitudinal axis B (
At the open end 45, the wall 55 includes an edge 75 that joins the wall inner and outer surfaces 60, 65 (see
The closed end 50 of the cover wall 55 includes a stop portion 90 with a stop inner surface 95 and a stop outer surface 100. As shown in
It is to be understood that while certain forms of the present invention have been illustrated and described herein, it is not to be limited to the specific forms or arrangement of parts described and shown.
