Kitchen Gear
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Kitchen Gear Don't Wash Dishes — Re-Use Old CD Cases
Posted by Nicki Wood on Wed, May 5, 2010 at 8:20 AM
Bites has been busy shoveling out the basement and running the bathtub full of water, so pardon the absence.
But now, with Metro water supplies in pretty good shape, there's no reason to panic. But don't turn on the dishwasher yet. Instead, do something your instincts have always urged you to do: re-use that CD spindle case. Admit it: you've always cried a little inside when you had to throw one out. From Gizmodo, this idea for putting them to good use.
At least one commenter also uses the top as a cereal bowl, while another warns of biphenols in non-food-grade packaging.
I admit to running a bathtub full of water on Sunday, and I saw someone buying four cases of bottled water yesterday at Trader Joe's. What are you doing for water conservation During The Other Situation 2010?
Monday, April 26, 2010
Kitchen Gear All Tomorrow's Refrigerators
Posted by Nicki Wood on Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 4:07 PM
Somewhere in upstate New York in an upscale retirement community, a former art director is just settling into his favorite chair with a cup of tea beneath a framed original of this.
- 1966 refrigerator advertisement
The Gemini 19, an appliance so futuristic it requires matching models to properly display it. So marvelously powerful that the user's head must be placed in a goldfish bowl for protection. (Goldfish bowl sold separately.)
Read the hilarious text — and see another futuristic refrigerator — at Paleofuture, a site documenting a future that never was. (There's much more at the site, but a lot of it is about boys imagining new ways to fly, which is pretty much always what the future is about, at least in the past.)
Friday, March 12, 2010
Kitchen Gear Makin' Cookies With Photoshop Cook
Posted by Steve Haruch on Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 10:50 AM
If you're like me, you love the idea of baking -- and especially the results -- but just don't have enough time, clean counter space or patience to do it. (Or maybe baking feels a little boring compared to the danger and sizzle of, say, deep-frying wontons? Could just be me.) Anyway, as someone who sits in front of a computer for most of his waking life, I am stoked to present the latest in digital manipulation: Photoshop Cook. Faux-dough shop, if you will -- sure to make baking the tool-selecting, dragging-and-dropping, batch-processing breeze all us office drones/lazy-ass bakers have been hoping for. Enjoy!
(HT to our intrepid art director, Elizabeth Jones.)
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Bites / Kitchen Gear Electric Can Openers: The Princess Phone of Tomorrow
Posted by Nicki Wood on Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 9:34 AM
It's obvious that vinyl records and phone booths top the list of once-important cultural items that will be cocktail conversation for the next generation. "Oh, my grandparents had a dial phone!" or "I have a photo of my great-uncle that was taken with a Polaroid."
In trying to go deeper, I've started a list that includes saccharin tablets, tonsilectomies, dried parsley and tractor feed printers.
The California fresh revolution, better transportation and advances in freezing mean that months pass without a single can being opened for a recipe. The last one was probably coconut milk, which is best opened with a bottle opener.
An electric can opener just seems like another thing to clutter up the counter. And another item -- like the electric skillet -- that's no better in its electric version that a really good manual model.
Help complete the list of buggy whip items -- kitchen and otherwise. Or, maybe you just can't do without an electric can opener. That's worth hearing about, too.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Kitchen Gear / People / Retail The Greening of Nashville Takeout Boxes
Posted by Dana Kopp Franklin on Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 1:41 PM
Ashley Currie, a Nashville entrepreneur, wants to help the planet by making takeout containers more green.
Currie has started a business offering eco-friendly food containers and other disposable foodware for restaurants, caterers and anyone planning a party.
Seizing upon a niche, she started iHospitality. Her inventory includes plates, bowls, cups, to-go boxes, cutlery, napkins, lunch trays, bakeware and bags. All are either recyclable or designed to break down into compost, even in a home compost bin. They are also biodegradable in a landfill.
The products are made from various materials such a bagasse (the pulpy material that remains after sugar cane juice is extracted). "Throw it in a landfill or compost it, and it will decompose and actually enrich the soil," Currie says. Bagasse is oilproof (neither butter nor olive oil nor down-home pork drippings will make it too soggy) and microwavable.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Kitchen Gear Today We Put Wii Remotes and Dolls into a Blender!
Posted by Nicki Wood on Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 8:08 AM
If my study is filling up with small appliances, it must be time for a Fine Cooking Test Drive! (Parental guidance warning: Princess Barbies may be harmed later in this post.)
Then we'll test the darlings by pureeing cream soups.
But let's face it -- all those tests are hardly worthy of a good blender. And especially a really great blender, and our lineup has some classics: the Oster Beehive, Waring, Blendtec.
It was Blendtec who had this fantastic idea for blending. Dancing Princess Barbies! Glowsticks!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Kitchen Gear Treasured Culinary Possessions
Posted by Nicki Wood on Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 7:25 AM
!["That's my great-grandmother's antique. [7UP bottle]. It was passed down to Mary Deil to Gussie Johnson to the great-great-granddaughter, me," says Janice Dunlap, a disabled retired cosmetologist in Waco, Texas.](/imager/thats-my-great-grandmothers-antique-7up-bottle-it-was-passed-down-to/b/original/1481206/010a/7-up_bottle_antique.jpg)
The things that become antiques -- who can guess? These long-neck 7-Up bottles from the 1960s -- my cousin had one and I was so envious. This woman, part of a moving photo essay by Susan Mullally, has saved it through thick and thin, and it's her most treasure possession because (now brace yourself) it belonged to her great-grandmother.
(I know -- I can't do that math either.)
My oldest culinary possession is a handmade wooden sugar bucket owned by my great-great-great-grandmother. The most treasured is a rolling pin my grandfather made from a cherry tree on his farm. It's heavy, and the surface is impossibly silky, so it rolls beautifully. He also made knives, though they were hard to use and the blades dulled quickly. My mother finally replaced them all, but I have his whetstone.
Mezzaluna, fish-shaped bottle opener from Israel, grandma's sugar bowl -- what piece of kitchen gear is firmly attached to your heart?
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Events / Kitchen Gear / News / Travel Advisory Bake a Cornbread Beauty and Bag a Bounty
Posted by Nicki Wood on Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 7:11 AM
Time to heat up the cast iron skillet and work on your cornbread recipe -- then submit it to the National Cornbread Cook-Off as part of the National Cornbread Festival.
With Lodge, Brown Stoveworks and Martha White all based in Tennessee, and the event held in South Pittsburg, Tenn., it is truly a locavore event. (Well, actually, Martha White is now owned by those Ohio Yankees at Smuckers but works to keep its local identity by promoting cornbread and the Grand Ole Opry.)
Submit an entree recipe that uses Martha White cornbread mix and is cooked in a piece of Lodge cast iron cookware. Ten finalists will compete on April 24 for a $5,000 first prize and a $3,000 Five Star oven. (A word from our sponsor: Five Star's performance is so impressive that this Tennessee product deserves to be far better known. It's built like a tank, heats like a blast furnace, and the pieces mostly come apart and go into the dishwasher.)
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Kitchen Gear A Slice of Knife
Posted by Nicki Wood on Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 7:14 AM
I used to have knives sharpened professionally, but was never happy with the results. My main knives, Wusthof Trident "Culinaire," had razor sharp blades originally. Now, even when I sharpen them myself, the resulting edge must be "sawed" to cut through grapefruit membranes.
The conclusion is that typical paring knives only have five to seven years in them. Christmas was time to replace them.
Did anyone ever sell Cutco knives to you or your mom? Because of the sales method (college students going door to door), you may have assumed it was crappy and cheap cutlery. I did, even when my own hard-working brother sold it. But 20 years later, everyone who bought from him still seems pretty happy with their Cutco knives. That's four times longer than five to seven years.
For Christmas I received a Cutco cheese knife and paring knife. General consensus is that the steel is harder than Wusthof and will hold an edge longer.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Good advice / Kitchen Gear New Year, Old Relics
Posted by Nicki Wood on Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 1:01 PM
The time right around the new year has a magical quality about it. It's a time of hope and optimism. A time when I'm stuck in the house with all my stuff. Time to get a fresh start on an uncluttered life.
The clutter goes into a box of stuff bound for Goodwill: ill-fitting clothes, untouched toys and gadgets, stray beach towels. Any items unused for more than a year, the rule of thumb goes, should go into the box.
One item that stays every year despite the rules is a set of Syracuse "Champlain" cups and saucers. They belonged to a distant relative I never knew. They take up a lot of room in a crowded cabinet. They never come out of the special padded box, except once, to set the mood for a Fabulous Fifties Bridge Party, with coffee and mints. They have to be washed by hand.
All good reasons to let them go, but look at the light filtering through the china. Look at the thin walls and the delicate pattern. It's like a whole other language, one that nobody speaks any longer.
What possession of yours -- real or psychic -- will survive the new year clean sweep?
