"KitchenTools" news and stories

Bison. Photo: digitalART2/Flickr

• Bison meat is lean and non-gamey -- and also delicious.
  
• The servers may wear jeans, but the food at Blanc Burgers is anything but casual, with patties mixed with rib-eye, tenderloin and New York strip steak.
• Choirmaster Kevin Hershberger talks about culinary style and shares a recipe for Gelatin Lemon Wedges.
• Kansas City hosts self-guided farm tours from Independence to Shawnee. And there are plenty of local farmers markets that bring the farms closer to home.
  
• Five cheap kitchen tools that won't break the bank: steak knives, wok, hands, coffee dripper and wine opener.
• The latest Seven-Day Menu Planner features everything from chicken wraps to Boston cream pie.
• Recipes: Grilled Swordfish Rolls, Quick Potato and Leek Soup, Citrus and Strawberry Chicken Salad.

In most conversations about kitchen tools, I'll be the first to step up and say, "Yeah, it's important to use good tools. They make everything easier." And yet, when it came to pastry blenders, for the last 8+ years I have not been following my own advice. I picked up that green-handled one that you see on the left sometime during college at a thrift store. It never worked well and yet I soldiered on, trying to cream butter and sugar together with wires that were constantly bending and spreading so wide that they allowed an entire stick of butter to pass through unmolested. Oh, and did I mention that the handle spins around?

Several weeks ago, I was down in Washington, DC visiting a friend. During the full day I was there, we spend nearly five hours going to three different thrift stores. During the course of that day, I picked up the pastry blender on the right for $.80 (I like good tools but I'm also cheap). I didn't really think much of it until I used the new one tonight. What a difference! The butter broke down easily, the wires didn't bend and the handle stayed right where it was supposed to. Good tools make such a difference!

Hey, we here at Slashfood know you can cook if all you have is fire and knives, but we still like to drool over cool new futuristic kitchen toys. MSN has listed a few fairly new things to equip your kitchen of the future, from cabinet finishes to major appliances.

• Refrigerators - go modular with columnar pieces that can be placed anywhere, they have French-style doors, and they now have luxurious water features like filling up water and rotating faucets in the door.
• Water - filtered water on tap, and a water faucet installed over the range to fill your pot on the stove-top instead of at the sink.
• Microwave ovens - in an under-the-counter drawer to save valuable counter-top space.
• Decor - countertops go retro with classic Boomerang laminate diner-style tops. Protect walls with a decorative tile backsplash
• Cabinetry - make maximum use of cabinet space with swing out doors that really swing out. Instead of wood or glass, it's steel-tone cabinetry, or maybe recessed panel cabinetry to create more space
• Sinks - have better designs to accommodate large pots and pans with either a low profile if the sink is divided, or heck, just take the divider out completely and make it own big bowl.
• For cooking - you need a restaurant-style griddle, an induction cooking top, and a convection oven.
• Other stuff - since the kitchen is the hub of all activity, you can answer the door while you're cooking with a door entry system.

One of the traditions associated with the lunar new year is house-cleaning. The idea is similar to "Out with the old, in with the new." You "sweep away" all the bad, and make room in-coming good.

The actual tradition is that the entire house should be cleaned the day before New Year's Day, then on the evening of New Year's Eve, all of the brooms and things used to clean are stored away so that there is no danger of accidentally sweeping out the good things that come in once the New Year arrives.

Now, I'm not going to celebrate the Chinese New Year by busting out a mop, but I do think I might stay within the spirit of the celebration by cleaning out my kitchen. There is a drawer in my kitchen, a very deep drawer, actually, that has a number of kitchen gadgets and tools that should be swept out of my house forever. The thing is, none of them are chipped nor broken. None of them are worn, and that is precisely the problem. They never get any use because they are *ahem* useless kitchen tools.

You have them, too. Like me, though, you're just afraid to throw them away because you think that there will be that ONE time two years from now that you will need it.

Trust me, you won't. And there is absolutely nothing in the world you can't accomplish with a spoon and a very good knife. Some highlights from my kitchen drawer:

• Garlic Peeler - okay, actually, this one doesn't even work all that well.
• Garlic Press - so hard to clean, it's not worth the ease of mincing garlic. I use a knife and kosher salt.
• The Brush - this is something that looks like a painful hairbrush that I still don't know what it was intended for.
• Melon Baller - I never make melon balls. I never make anything that needs to have tiny, cute ball-shapes.
• The Syringe - I have never used it, and actually, like the garlic peeler, it actually doesn't work that well. When I have to baste something, I use a ladle. Or a pastry brush. Then again, after finding Alton Brown's recipe for turkey, never will I baste again.

Take the time this weekend to follow the lunar new year tradition and just toss those useless kitchen gadgets! Don't give them to Goodwill. They should be put completely to rest.