Category: Reviews

If you need a gift for someone that has a passion for cooking, my bet is that they’d love a good kitchen gadget. Take it from me: I love food, I love cooking, and I love kitchen tools and gadgets.

Here are my gift recommendations for the chef in your life:

Cuisinart SmartStick Immersion Blender
I am a soup fiend, so I use this baby at least once a week. It is so much more convenient than loading the soup into the blender. Especially if you’re making a LOT of soup- trying to puree soup in a blender in batches is a pain in the patootie. Not to mention the danger and mess of hot soup explosions. It comes in about a million different colors, too. I know I shouldn’t care what color the damn things are, but I can’t ever resist. (I’m quite partial to the lime green.)

Wusthof Knife Set
If you don’t have a set of knives that are sharp enough to take a finger off, then you are missing out. I was given a set of Wusthofs about 8 years ago and they are still just as deadly sharp as the day I got them.

Now here’s my funny Wusthof story: I bought a set as a wedding gift for my best friend. Another friend and I were flying out to the wedding, and I had the knives in my suitcase. I had planned on checking my bag early, but we were running late, and we decided to go through security with our luggage and check our bags at the gate. Our plane is supposed to leave in 5 minutes, and we’re booking it through the airport. We get to the security check, and the TSA pulls my friend aside because something she’s wearing is setting off the metal detector. Great.

As I’m standing there, tapping my foot nervously because we’re seriously going to miss our flight now, I notice that the TSA has taken a special interest in my suitcase. First I think, of course, this is just my luck. My bags are always ALWAYS the ones that get “randomly” searched. Always.

The TSA agent calls her boss over. Now what?! Her boss walks over and asks me, “Is there something long, sharp, and metal in your suitcase?” And completely oblivious  me goes, “Yeah. Knives.”  Like I can’t imagine why that would be a problem. DUH. And he says, “YOU HAVE KNIVES IN YOUR SUITCASE?”  Then I realize what a freaking idiot I am and start explaining that I’m not a psycho. They’re very nice kitchen knives. They’re a wedding gift. We are going to our friend’s wedding and WE ARE GOING TO MISS OUR FLIGHT.

The TSA guy actually wound up being super nice. I’m pretty sure trying to bring sharp pointy stabby things through security is exactly the kind of thing that is supposed to get you pulled aside and stuck in a weird little interrogation room with yucky dim fluorescent lighting. Instead he said that I could go back and check my bag or they could take the knives out and let me through. “What happens to the knives?” I ask. “They get thrown away.”  ARG! So my choice is miss my flight or give up the knives. I gave up the knives, and we did make our flight. (But missed the connecting flight. And they lost my friend’s luggage. It was one of those kinds of trips.)

Misto Olive Oil Sprayer
I like to make a lot of baked versions of fried foods, and one of the tricks to getting a good crisp when you bake is spray oil. A lot of recipes tell you to brush on the oil, but in my experience, the brush leaves big gobs of oil. So I always use spray oil instead. But I hated that I was buying at least a can a month. Total waste of packaging and money.

So I finally got myself one of these sprayers. You can use any oil you want. I actually have two now- one for vegetable oil and one for olive oil. Making fresh baked tortilla chips and kale chips is super easy.Read more…