New Toys

What am I going to do with you, good-looking?

How do I treat myself? Let me count the ways. Trudging my way from the camp of the kitchen toy have nots to the enviable haves, this week I made a soaring leap with the purchase of a double-pronged sword—er, blade: this Cuisinart food processor and blender.

It’s quite cute and huggably-sized. I don’t have any space for it in my have not-suited kitchen just yet. But it’s with the family. A family of tools that includes, now:

a 7 quart Le Creuset dutch oven

one good high-heat silicone spatula that’s probably in every photo on this blog from December 2006 on

(not pictured) a Braun handheld blender (inherited from someone?)

a rinky-dink orange and aluminum Tatung rice cooker (for those unfamiliar with Asian brands, this Taiwanese one has been around long enough and amassed a recognition similar to Osterizer)

several crappy knives. And these pretty steak knives.

a starchy new Williams Sonoma denim apron with my name monogrammed on it. That’s right, you know what chef you’re dealing with now. The newly halfway decently-equipped Chef Appliance Envy.

In fact, looking back through the photos for some of those tool shots, I found much in the way of evidence of not using proper kitchen equipment:

San Marzano is known for its world-famous dough-cutting region; the old no-roll press the pastry into the pan trick

And then there was this weird blog comment where someone chastised me for using nonstick pans, admittedly unattractive ones.

But that’s it for a while, I have no space for any other gadgets. Seriously. Except those ramekins I’m going to need in order to bake something with the 2 lb bag of Jacques Torres chocolate (top) for the big V-day. I’m not sure quite what I’m going to bake, but I have a feeling that it may involve the words “molten” and “cake.” Mwa-hahaha…

And now back to your regular programming.