Got a foodie on your list? These gifts are sure to please!
These canisters are pretty awesome. You can write the contents on the front and switch it up when you switch out what’s inside! They come in a variety of sizes at great prices.
So it’s December 1st and you know what that means? Some of you jokers still haven’t started shopping for the holidays. Why bother battling the unwashed ruffians at the mall when you can point and click your way to the finish line at home?
Since you’ve probably got someone on your list that enjoys cooking, we’ve picked out some interesting and useful kitchen gift ideas. I guarantee that there’s something in here for everyone, even for the person that already has everything.
Here are nine cool gift ideas under fifteen bucks and five under forty to fit any budget. Just for good measure, there’s a bonus idea at the end – if money is no object.
Gifts under Fifteen bucks:
What kitchen would be complete without a wind-up miniature Mario Batali doll? This little guy’s even got Mario’s signature orange clogs.
Some people collect stamps, others are into fine wines. Me? I collect jeans, shoes, various cosmetics, assorted kitchen tools and gadgets. James and I love going to stores like TJ Maxx, Marshall’s and Ross to check out the home goods sections for new paring knives, ramekins, hand held foaming devices and what have you.
These stores happen to serve double duty for me though as I can also check out great deals on fashion while I’m there. My latest trip to TJ Maxx proved to be very worth while! I managed to snag an awesome pair of gold wedges by Jessica Simpson I’d been coveting at Loehmann’s a week prior that weren’t in my size. I also picked up a very cute little chef’s knife in the most ‘fashion forward’ color green! Okay so it may not be the sharpest one on our wall but hey, it definitely manages to stand out from the crowd (see the picture above). Something I aspire to as well.
Check out your local discount stores and check back often. They’re always turning over their inventory so new deals pop up every week!
(Say what you will about her but Jessica Simpson makes some kickin’ shoes!)
So, maybe you’re like a lot of people that really enjoy stomach aches, intestinal parasites and the unrelenting flood of painful diarrhea that can come with improperly cooked foods…let us just say right off the top that the thermapen is NOT for you.
No, this fine device does just one thing in your kitchen…it measures the temperature of whatever you’re cooking. It doesn’t tell you what the proper range is for a given protein. It doesn’t beep when it your product reaches a specific target temperature. It doesn’t have any kind of integrated timer or calculator or WiFi enabled social networking, and it still costs about $90 retail.
I can hear you through this website asking “Why would I spend ninety bucks on a thermometer that doesn’t even check my Facebook status for me?” The answer is that this thing will read temperature in less then 4 seconds with an accuracy of plus or minus 1 digit. That’s not just marketing hype, it works as advertised and on a recent test drive, it only took three seconds to inform us that we’d hopelessly overcooked our chicken kabobs.
If you love tough chicken and persistently grey beef, then please ignore the thermapen and continue cooking your meat until it’s suitable to be crafted into outerwear. If you want to host a family of nasty organisms in your lower intestine, then please ignore the thermapen.
However, if you’re interested in cooking in that very narrow range of “won’t kill you” and “still edible”…run and get yourself a thermapen. Cooks Illustrated don’t lie and neither do we.
Yeah, you’ve got the knives you love, but you probably don’t really take care of them.
Maybe they’re some fancy collection of deadly German crafted instruments you picked up from William-Sonoma instead of saving for your kid’s college tuition. Maybe you’re like us and you collect reasonably priced, but perpetually mismatched knives from discount stores. Hey, maybe you’re one of those jokers still trying to hold onto the mythic lie about the brutal cutting power of the Ginsu…
Either way, regardless of the dollars you invested, without semi annual sharpening your knives are probably about as dull as a baseball bat. And I don’t know about you, but you can’t make proper sashimi with a Louisville Slugger.
Face it, you need knife sharpening and the ChefsChoice 130 electric sharpening station made by Edgecraft dumbs down knife maintenance to the point that jokers like us can recover a razor sharp edge with just a few minutes of painless work.
The first pass uses a diamond wheel to grind down the nicks and knocks and reestablishes a proper edge ready for honing and polishing. It’s a bit disconcerting the first time to hear the scream when your knife touches the wheel, just take your time and drag slowly several times on each side as the directions advise. The second stage drags the blade past a non-moving honing bar to refine the edge, while the final stage polishes the edge on both sides to the point where you can carelessly draw your own blood.
This thing gets knives sharp. We mean SHARP – we have the cuts to prove it, but we also now have the ability to slice tomatoes as thin as potato chips with knives that had trouble attacking butter. Trust us, you can’t HAVE knife skills if your knives aren’t sharp…so consider picking up this bad boy (and a pack of band-aids while you’re at it).
Oh…and if you’re the person in that third category…still using the Ginsu…buy some real knives while you’re at it.