- Category
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- Prep 107
- Cooking 71
- Serving 50
- Entertaining 16
- Storage 25
- Miscellaneous 16
The Essential Kitchen
We thought it might be helpful to group our Cool Tools in categories that reflect their role in the meal creation process. So here is our attempt to be helpful:
- Prep: These are the tools that are your workhorses, and the ones that most take the place of a sous-chef. These Cool Tools help you prepare your ingredients to be cooked. In finding Cool Tools for food prep, functionality, time saving and ease of use are the most important things we look for. Each and every one of these does its job particularly well and takes your food prep from drudgery to fun (well, almost!) When we finally carry knives, they will fit in this section.
- Cooking: These are the Cool Tools that you actually use during the cooking process; that means they have to be easy to use, handy to pick up, and work well without thinking about it, because your focus should be on the food--these Cool Tools take a supporting role.
- Serving: These are the Cool Tools that take your meal from the kitchen to the table, and make it easy and beautiful to serve your food.
- Entertaining: These are all the Cool Tools that are part of your entertaining repertoire and make the event easy for you and memorable for your guests.
- Storage: When the meal is over, what do you do with all those leftover bits? These Cool Tools will help.
- Miscellaneous: These are some more Cool Tools that we love, but they didn't fit neatly into one of the other categories.
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Progressive "Crank-It" JuicerWhy It's Cool: Fresh citrus juice made easy!With all the rain, this is a banner year for citrus in California, but even if you’re picking up lemons and limes at your local farmers’ market or grocery store, rather than...
Dandy Scooper Duper (Folding Bench Scraper) - D10Why It's Cool: Move and funnel your chopped ingredients to a bowl or storage container easily and with one handHave you ever been frustrated moving food from your cutting board to your pot or bowl? I know we have. Even with a flexible cutting board, you can’t always get it aimed well...
OXO Cast Iron Brush - O41Why It's Cool: Easiest way to keep your cast iron (or any) cookware clean and seasonedThe product subtitle - “Tackles hard-to-clean cookware” - more clearly states the problem for which this tool is intended. We all have confronted difficult cleaning problems,...
Dreamfarm Apple Divider ("Flapple") - D21Why It's Cool: Easily and safely cuts apples or pears into convenient pieces, and then takes up very little space when stored in a drawer. It also grabs hold of its own base.You know the old saying: “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”? Well, everyone is telling us to eat more fruits and vegetables, and the apple, and its cousin the pear, are...
Dreamfarm Masher ("Smood") - D25Why It's Cool: Mashes anything mashable in about half the time with half the effort.Who doesn’t love mashed potatoes? Whether as a side, a base for fish or meat, or as a ‘refill’ for ‘twice-baked’ potatoes, a thoroughly blended ‘mash’ is one of...
Dreamfarm Chopping Spatula ("Chopula") - D28Why It's Cool: Super thin, super flexible to pick up food, but strong enough to chop food in the pan.For years I have chased pancakes around a griddle because my spatula wasn’t thin enough, or I was unable to get over the lip of a saute pan and underneath whatever was in it...
Dreamfarm Silicone Brush ("Brizzle") - D24Why It's Cool: Picks up basting liquid in a cup that drizzles the liquid through 4 holes onto 100 silicone bristles to make for much more efficient basting.A good basting brush is something every cook needs in the kitchen, whether you're basting pan juices or butter on a protein, spreading butter or oil in a saute pan or a baking pan...
Set of Magnetic measuring Spoons (8 pieces) - H12Why It's Cool: All the good sizes (7 spoons) with double ends for more usability and convenience and a leveler to make your measurements more precise.Measuring spoons are one of the most often-used tools in any kitchen. We need them for everything from precision baking to approximate cooking, so that we can repeat great results...
Norpro Stainless Steel Scoops-1 TbspOne of my favorite hors d’oeuvre to make when I have company is gougères: those airy, cheesy puffs that melt in your mouth. The hardest thing about gougères is dealing with...
OXO V-Blade Mandoline SlicerA mandoline is both awesome and scary. Awesome, because it really can do things a knife can’t (at least not when wielded by a mere amateur), like julienning a couple of pounds...