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Christmas Presents for the Kitchen: 2012

Kerry Beal

By Kerry Beal
in Food Traditions & Culture

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ChrisTaylor

ChrisTaylor

Posted
Posted

Three fun things.

An AeroPress, a portable induction stove (single 'burner') and a hardware store voucher, with which I purchased a Dremel. A power tool, yeah, that I'll be using in my ghetto engineering projects: an improved sous vide rig and a cold smoker. I guess you could also count another. Treated myself to this: http://www.redspooncompany.com/index.php/molecular-gastronomy/ingredients/packs/complete-creation-pack.html

Should open up a few more possibilties from Modernist Cuisine.

Chris Taylor

Host, eG Forums - ctaylor@egstaff.org

 

I've never met an animal I didn't enjoy with salt and pepper.

Melbourne
Harare, Victoria Falls and some places in between

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Porthos

Porthos

Posted
Posted

My additions are pretty humble but I'm happy with them. I bought the 600 grit stone (fine) for my Edge Pro Apex. I also am getting a Polder brand digital thermometer. It seems to be better reviewed than Taylor and I've had 2 Taylors just did not last that long.

Side Note: If you've never sharpened your own knives and have been thinking about starting to do it I can't recommend the Edge Pro Apex highly enough.

Porthos Potwatcher
The Once and Future Cook

;

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andiesenji

andiesenji

Posted
Posted

Got another gift basket of cheeses - this one from iGourmet, from an unexpected quarter - someone for whom I did a favor several months ago and which I had completely forgotten.

I won't have to buy any cheese for awhile...

Also today was gifted with a slab of home-cured bacon from an ex-neighbor to whom I gave my big smoker/barbecue a couple of years ago when they moved to a little ranch. Home grown hog he says is a "Glouster odd spot" (?sp).

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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Pierogi

Pierogi

Posted
Posted (edited)

Merry Christmas to me, Merry Christmas to me, Merry Christmas, dear Pierogi, Merry Christmas to me !!!

After having finally determined that a) I'm not getting any younger; b) I'm not getting any RICHER; and c) I *still* want 'em after hankering for 'em for over a year at Amazon....

I just pulled the trigger on 5 new cookbooks. "Hot Sour Salty Sweet", "Thailand the Beautiful", "Into the Vietnamese Kitchen", "The Chinese Kitchen" by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, and "Essential Pepin" by my boy Jacques. No. I don't need them. Yeah, I want them. Actually (caution, rationalization ahead) my Asian library was in desperate need of expansion. I don't think a mid-1980's paperback of Sunset's "Oriental Cooking" qualifies me as an Asian cuisine expert, although it really IS an excellent, if very broad, overview. And who can resist a new Pepin book?

I suppose I could claim the dogs got them for me.....oh, and there may have been an Ella Fitzergald boxed CD set in there as well. What can I say, the dogs like scat singers. :biggrin:

Edited by Pierogi (log)

--Roberta--

"Let's slip out of these wet clothes, and into a dry Martini" - Robert Benchley

Pierogi's eG Foodblog

My *outside* blog, "A Pound Of Yeast"

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andiesenji

andiesenji

Posted
Posted

I got one of these battery-operated pepper mills to keep next to the range. http://www.amazon.co...ils_o00_s00_i00

I love the battery-operated pepper grinders. I have several because I use different types of peppercorns. When I took the photo on this page in 2010 I had 3 of the Trudeau graviti elite, now I have six, plus a couple of others.

I haven't seen the Wm. Bounds until now. Let me know how it works as I have added some more types of peppercorns to my "collection."

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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Shelby

Shelby

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Posted

A Breville countertop convection toaster oven.

I have the same thing and I LOVE it. I don't know what I did without it.

Merry Christmas to me, Merry Christmas to me, Merry Christmas, dear Pierogi, Merry Christmas to me !!!

After having finally determined that a) I'm not getting any younger; b) I'm not getting any RICHER; and c) I *still* want 'em after hankering for 'em for over a year at Amazon....

I just pulled the trigger on 5 new cookbooks. "Hot Sour Salty Sweet", "Thailand the Beautiful", "Into the Vietnamese Kitchen", "The Chinese Kitchen" by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, and "Essential Pepin" by my boy Jacques. No. I don't need them. Yeah, I want them. Actually (caution, rationalization ahead) my Asian library was in desperate need of expansion. I don't think a mid-1980's paperback of Sunset's "Oriental Cooking" qualifies me as an Asian cuisine expert, although it really IS an excellent, if very broad, overview. And who can resist a new Pepin book?

I suppose I could claim the dogs got them for me.....oh, and there may have been an Ella Fitzergald boxed CD set in there as well. What can I say, the dogs like scat singers. :biggrin:

You deserve them and I hope you LOVE every minute browsing through them.

I posted on the wrong thread earlier.

I got three, yes THREE Shun knives from my husband. I'm in heaven. I pray that I don't cut a finger off.

First eG Blog-Winter 2011

 

Second eG Blog-Summer 2015

 

Third eG Blog-Hunting season Birds and Deer 2016, 2017,2018,2019, 2021, 2022

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pastameshugana

pastameshugana

Posted
Posted

Well, I spoke too soon. Late gifts arrived from DW: A set of spoons with concentric measurements in them...very interesting. One spoon has ridges for 1/4tsp, 1tsp, 2tsp, the other with tbsp.

Also, very excited about a set of silicone molds intended for freezing ice into shot-glass shapes. I plan on doing much more creative things with them!

PastaMeshugana

"The roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd."

"What's hunger got to do with anything?" - My Father

My first Novella: The Curse of Forgetting

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chileheadmike

chileheadmike

Posted
Posted

The 36cm DeBuyer frypan. All 7+ lbs of it. Haven't had a chance to even season it yet, but I'm looking forward to some great steaks out of that thing.

Cool! Is that the 12.6 inch?

Yes, it's now seasoned. I haven't used it too much. Seared some chicken for fajitas over the holidays. The thing is a lot of fun to cook with and as an added bonus it's building up my arms.

That's the thing about opposum inerds, they's just as tasty the next day.

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lindag

lindag

Posted
Posted

"I got three, yes THREE Shun knives from my husband. I'm in heaven. I pray that I don't cut a finger off."

Yep, those suckers are amazingly sharp. I have cut myself several times. But I do love the sharpness of Japanese angle blades. I'll never go back to the German brands.

Besides the Shuns are SO gorgeous!

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naguere

naguere

Posted
Posted

Got another gift basket of cheeses - this one from iGourmet, from an unexpected quarter - someone for whom I did a favor several months ago and which I had completely forgotten.

I won't have to buy any cheese for awhile...

Also today was gifted with a slab of home-cured bacon from an ex-neighbor to whom I gave my big smoker/barbecue a couple of years ago when they moved to a little ranch. Home grown hog he says is a "Glouster odd spot" (?sp).

Gloucester, which is in Gloucestershire,and only 20 miles from Cirencester. . Wonderful meat the pigs have. ;)

Martial.2,500 Years ago:

If pale beans bubble for you in a red earthenware pot, you can often decline the dinners of sumptuous hosts.

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andiesenji

andiesenji

Posted
Posted

Got another gift basket of cheeses - this one from iGourmet, from an unexpected quarter - someone for whom I did a favor several months ago and which I had completely forgotten.

I won't have to buy any cheese for awhile...

Also today was gifted with a slab of home-cured bacon from an ex-neighbor to whom I gave my big smoker/barbecue a couple of years ago when they moved to a little ranch. Home grown hog he says is a "Glouster odd spot" (?sp).

Gloucester, which is in Gloucestershire,and only 20 miles from Cirencester. . Wonderful meat the pigs have. ;)

Since I posted, I have been corrected, the pig breed is indeed Gloucestershire OLD Spot. My friend bought a breeding pair plus a younger female from a breeder in Illinois, four years ago, along with a pair of "Large Blacks" and is raising them the "traditional" way allowing the hogs to forage in pastures planted with a mix of legumes and grain (no corn) and in the orchards that were on the ranch when he bought it (apples and almonds). He says they don't fatten as rapidly as hogs fed on commercial foods but they also aren't getting any hormones or antibiotics. He is still building his stock and trading young pigs for breeding with other breeders to expand the gene pool, but eventually wants to sell the meat to restaurants, etc.

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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rotuts

rotuts

Posted
Posted (edited)

andiesenji

you are so lucky. Im pleased that different breeds of pigs are now being raised.

Some time ago, I loved and still have the books of Waverley Root. Food of France and Food of Italy.

he mentions growing up in NE and the best pork he ever had was what might have been grown by his family or close by:

the pigs got buckets and buckets of local apples that were not fit for sale or cider.

he said and I do believe him that that pork had 'built in applesauce' His words.

soooo do we get some pic of that port? pre and post ?

cheers

Edited by rotuts (log)
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Ashen

Ashen

Posted
Posted (edited)

22.5 inch one touch gold Weber charcoal BBQ

jalapeno corer.

Meat slicer

some money that I will put towards waterstones.

A gift card I will use for an Aeropress.

Edited by Ashen (log)

"Why is the rum always gone?"

Captain Jack Sparrow

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Ashen

Ashen

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maybe in the future once I have bought a few carbon steel blades.. right now I am looking at Naniwa Chocera stones and a leather strop for my Shuns.

"Why is the rum always gone?"

Captain Jack Sparrow

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andiesenji

andiesenji

Posted
Posted

Continuing post about my gift of home-cured bacon.

Yesterday I got my electric slicer out and sliced the whole slab, vacuum sealed in manageable portions and then I cooked some of it

PARTIALLY and vacuumed sealed that.

Some I cooked fully - pictured here. It did not shrink very much - after cooking the strips were about an inch shorter than when raw.

You can see it is very, very lean and I wish you could taste the flavor - it is phenomenal. Just a hint of smokiness, not much salt and very, very sweet - has a pecan flavor.

HPIM4857.JPG

bacon closeup.jpg

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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andiesenji

andiesenji

Posted
Posted (edited)

It tastes more like some imported Irish bacon I bought some time back than it does like regular bacon. I've never found any store-bought bacon that had so little fat.

I cooked 14 ounces and got less than 1/4 cup grease from it.

And the fat is naturally yellow, which they tell me is due to the herbal stuff they eat in the pasture. They broadcast a seed mixture of alfalfa, broad beans, kale, sorrel, salsify and a few other green herbs and hemp.

Edited by andiesenji (log)

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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