Lakewood Ranch inventor knows how to marinate meat

Lakewood Ranch’s Louis Siegel tossed and turned in bed during a restless July night as ideas kept popping into his head.

He wasn’t, however, thinking about the invention he designed to treat tennis elbow, or the open-heart probe he patented to assist surgeons when they operate on infants.

His mind was occupied with enzymes, proteins, fats and tissue, but in a quite different way.

Siegel had a steak marinating in the refrigerator.

“I woke up and thought, ‘I need to flip it over,’” Siegel said.

After shuffling down to his kitchen, Siegel found that, sitting in a plastic container, his marinade had not penetrated the bottom of his steak, which was pressed against the container. “If you don’t marinate the whole food, it becomes less healthy,” he said.

His inventor’s side took over as he thought about solutions to his problem.

Say hello to the MarinAid-er,” Siegel’s newest invention which has a patent pending. The steak is placed on a tray in a plastic container, and just enough marinade is added to cover the tray. It is designed with spacing rails and wicking tunnels so the meat will absorb the marinade.

Simplistic in nature, the idea caught the attention of the Home Shopping Network.

Siegel’s MarinAid-er was chosen as one of 65 semifinalists in the HSN and Good Housekeeping magazine Entrepreneur Contest. It was selected out of more than 600 entries.

Following a three-minute presentation in St. Petersburg Aug. 31, Siegel’s invention was not selected as one of the three finalists who earned the right to pitch their product on HSN, but he sees the product moving forward and attracting the attention of cooks everywhere. “I have not yet moved into retail, but I am interested in licensing,” he said.

HSN agrees the MarinAid-er has possibilities and has invited Siegel to join its American Dreams initiative which recognizes and assists entrepreneurs.

No matter what happens, he enjoys the process.

“I just really like creating things,” said Siegel, who is 76. “To have people use my inventions, and recognize them, is where the reward comes in. I’m lucky I still have the brain power and energy to do things like this.”

Following the death of his wife of 51 years, Ruth, in 2011, Siegel has channeled his energy into creating things, and the MarinAid-er won’t be his final invention.

He doesn’t mind if his inventions affect the world on a large scale, such as saving an infant’s life with a heart probe, or by showing up on a person’s dining room table, by tenderizing a porterhouse with his MarinAid-er.

“It’s no penicillin,” he said of his MarinAid-er. “But it’s no Chia Pet, either.”