Entries Tagged 'Tools & Gadgets' ↓

By far the most interesting thing I’ve done with food in the last several weeks is make compost. Not to be confused with composting that actually requires labor, my first-ever experience with composting is more like a really fun grade school science fair project. After studying every conceivable composter aimed at a largely untapped green wannabe market, I bought a Naturemill.

Designed for users with a low tolerance for bad smells and messy mixing, the Naturemill is an engineering marvel. Looking something like a computer tower case, the Plus Edition model I bought has a lidded top that opens to a chamber housing a mixing blade and trap door to a tray that catches the compost. You deposit kitchen waste in the top and when it’s good and ready (in about two weeks), it falls to the lower chamber for a little additional curing. It’s billed as an indoor composter, but I have mine parked right outside the back door off the kitchen—and yes, the novelty may wear off, but I like to lift the lid once in a while just to see the potato peels, coffee grinds, and apple cores turning into a rich, dark mess of good stuff for the garden or flower beds.

To be honest, I have always been more of a farmer’s market shopper than a backyard gardener, but the compost making cultivated an interest in growing a few veggies and herbs this summer. More on that in the next installment. In the meantime, check out the Naturemill video and if you decide to buy one, send along an email after you do your online order to the Naturemill folks and request a $50 discount. Tell ‘em Anne sent you.

I have enough foodie connections to know that serious home cooks prefer gas to electric ranges. The really serious among them might even opt for gas cooktop and electric oven.

Real estate choices and utility company policies consigned me to cooking with electricity for much of the last sixteen years. No gas line hookup and no willingness on the part of the gas company to install a line (unless we replaced a perfectly good oil heat burner) were two compelling reasons to go electric. And as it turned out, my recently retired Dacor range was not all that bad. But dang if I didn’t want to make the next go-around gas.

Call it a payback for the truly patient, but a gas line was easier to arrange in 2007 than it was in 1991. What wasn’t so easy was finding a gas range that didn’t look clunky and overburdened with features I didn’t want. I wanted stainless steel, high-power burners, and a simple, clean look. And it had to fit in the standard 30 inch space that was available.

The day I took a walk down Wyoming Avenue in Kingston and spotted a Bertazzoni range in the showroom at Voitek Appliance, it was all over but for signing on the dotted line. (And yes, I did the due diligence and checked out reviews on the web (pretty much fantastico across the board) and knew what would be a fair price.)

A month into using the Berta, I don’t think I’m any more serious a cook than I ever was. I may, however, be a happier one.

In theory, a good set of knives should be all you need to turn out finely sliced, evenly shredded, and uniformly diced food.

In practice, many of us who own really good knives know that this theory is not bulletproof. In my kitchen, there is no knife that will cut it when the result I’m after is perfect vegetable strands for simple Japanese-inspired garnish or salad. But thanks to a recent purchase of Cook Help, a vertical turning slicer made in Japan by Benriner, strands are literally billowing off my kitchen counter.

The Cook Help slicer looks like the object of one of those late-night infomercial pitches, and its instruction leaflet promises more than I thought this relatively light-weight tool could possibly deliver. Lightweight in this case does not mean wimpy—this is a simple, efficient, and easy-to-use engineering marvel.

There are plenty of online outlets selling the Cook Help for around $50, including fantes.com. If you’re in or near Philadelphia, go directly to Fantes Kitchen Wares in south Philly and pick one up in person. It is a GREAT store that sells absolutely everything you want and many things you don’t even know you want (yet). [Fantes, 1006 S. Ninth St., Philadelphia, PA]