I rue the day I first put my manual can opener in the dishwasher -- it was the beginning of a long process of rusting. Now, I keep a solid list of tools that should stay far away from the dishwasher.

Scrolling through my daily Thrillist email blast, I found a tout for "Sommelier Wine Glasses." Ever feigning an earnest and legitimate interest/knowledge of wine, I clicked through, only to find this truly stellar stemware.

These kegger-cups-cum-wine-glasses are ideally suited for people like me who pretend to care about Viticulture, but are actually throwin' back jugs of Carlo Rossi.

Just remember, these are hand-blown glass, so try and refrain from playing Wine Pong. (Or worse, Flip Cup.)

If you're in Philadelphia over the weekend, be sure to check out Let Them Eat Cake, a wedding cake design competition whose proceeds will go to benefit City of Hope, a California-based cancer care center.

Whether you're a participant (entry fee is $100 for professionals, and students can compete for free!) or just drooling spectator, it'll be totally worth it to take in the scene and watch as pastry chefs battle it out for nine different titles, including Most Artistic and Best Tasting (the cakes, not the chefs).

The 2006 Best of Show winner (pictured) was a delicate pink and white number from Ann's Cake Pan of Horsham, Pa.

The special guest judge will be Sylvia Weinstock, baker of extraordinary cakes and wearer of over sized glasses. (Her cakes are amazing, but the intricacy of the website alone tells me I could never afford one).

So, go! Marvel! Drool! And cross your fingers that they give out free samples at the end.

For Halloween, you can either mix up your own creepy concoctions at the bar and call them
by some overly cute name like "Monst-arita" or "Frankentini," but that assumes you're a pretty good mixologist. My guess is that the best you've done outside of your usual is mixing too much Diet Coke with your vanilla vodka. In other words, leave the creative mixing for the professionals.

Still, to keep with the spirit of Halloween, you can serve Halloween-ish drinks by serving them in Halloween-inspired glasses. Why bother messing with your favorite Dirty Martini or Cosmo? Just pour your poison into one of the above glasses, Wicked Witch, Mummytini, and Fright Night, by Lolita.

The glasses are available from Deb's Unique Gifts.

Sometimes it isn't what is inside the glass that counts, it is the glass itself. Jaden at Steamy Kitchen used Bodum Pavina Double Walled Glasses to make a gorgeous cup of Espresso con panna, which is espresso topped with a generous dollop of whipped cream, as show above.

Though the beverage inside is what caught my eye, I had to take a closer look at the glass itself. They are insulated and double walled, handmade and mouth-blown, and come in six different sizes ranging from an iced tea glass (21 oz.) down to a 2oz. espresso / shot glass. (The glass shown in the picture is a 5oz.) Prices range from $11.95-$39.95 on the Bodum website, for a set of two glasses.

Is it too early to start making my Christmas wish list?

I spotted this great set of Cheers Shot Glasses over at Luxist. Made by Waterford, each of the glass shot glasses is engraved with a different way of saying "cheers!" In addition to English, the other languages are Gaelic - slainte!, Spanish - salud!, Italian - cin cin!, Japanese - kan-pai! and German - prost! The glasses will serve as a conversation piece and will add a little bet of extra cheer to any and all celebrations. The set is packaged in a circular gift box, so all you need is a bow to turn it into a holiday present or a hostess gift. Best of all, the set is part of one of the Vintage Marquis collection, which is one of the more reasonably priced Waterford lines, and is only $49.

If shot glasses aren't a part of your entertaining plans for the holidays, Waterford is also offering a set of celebration balloon wine glasses ($79) that are engraved with celebrate, cheers, joy, festive, soiree and holiday.

Onion goggles don't have the same effect as, say, beer goggles do. Much like swimming goggles, they have a foam seal around the edges that is designed to keep things out. In this case, they keep out the tear-causing onion fumes and allow you to see clearly as you do your prep work in the kitchen.

Your eyes water when you cut onions because the onion cells have enzymes that, when released, turn into irritating gasses. Once the gas reaches your eyes, the body starts producing tears to cleanse them.

You could still choose to wear swimming goggles to get the same effect, but thebenefit of choosing these is that they simply slip on like regular glasses and don't have an elastic band holding them in place. Plus, white plastic glasses with foam padding are simply all the rage this season. Didn't you know?

They are made from a new material called Kwarz and are 'unbreakable' claim the manufacturers - these covertable wine glasses have just been launched at Vinexpo in Hong Kong.

The makers claim it is the most important revolution in glass since automated lead crystal production. The manufactueres ARC International, is giving nothing away about the processes but stated that  'Kwarx is a new material'.

They also claim that Kwarx has the finest transparency ever achieved and offers the best performance of non colouration of the glass. This means the rendition of the colour of a wine is absolutely authentic and this brilliance is fade-resistant. Tested in a laboratory, Kwarx retains its original sparkle after more than 2 000 industrial washes. This means that a glass is 4 to 5 times more resistant to the actions of a dishwasher.

I can't find details of prices but both the red and the white glass, pictured, look very stylish.

 

The fashion in wine glasses is for them to be varietal, which means that the shape of each glass is specifically designed to enhance the flavor and aroma of that type of wine. It also means that connoisseurs have to buy a lot more stemware if they want to have the best experience with their favorite wine. A new type of glass, the Zafferano Esperienze glass, promises to be the ultimate in wine tasting. These glasses are varietal and come in 15 different shapes. The rippling at the base of each glass is designed to allow the wine to develop its optimal flavor by giving it maximum exposure to the surface of the glass.

The glasses were recently recommended by David Rosengarten (who loved them) and mentioned in the New York Times, so perhaps there is more to their design than just hype. They are $29.99 for four and will be available at Macy's, followed by Bloomingdale's and Bed, Bath & Beyond, later this month.

As Super Bowl Sunday rolls around and some of you get ready to have people over for drinking and snacking, a pre-new-year's-eve post of mine comes to mind. Some of you may remember a recent study from Cornell University professor and "food psychologist" Brian Wansink, where we learned that glass size affects how much people pour. Short, wide glasses resulted in people (even trained bartenders) pouring more liquor than with tall, thin glasses.

Another Wansink-led study last year focused on snacking and bowl size. As you can imagine, people tended to eat lots more, 56 percent more, when they were plucking Chex mix from big bowls rather than small ones. In that study, the extra snacking broke down to 142 calories more per person.

Obviously, if your beer is coming from a can or a bottle, everyone will probably have their own, and if you have a keg, a red plastic cup is probably in order. But, if your guests are mixing drinks, the glass size is good to keep in mind. And, if you've got limited amounts of snackage, small bowls could be in order.