Kitchen Electrics and Tools, Part Two

I still remember the days the moving van pulled away from our apartment building in Astoria and pulled up to our street in West Hollywood. It took over a week to pack our urban home for the move west, and an additional three weeks for our household to travel across the continent to its new home. We had already set up housekeeping in Los Angeles, so that household move was not about starting from scratch, as we had done as a new couple twenty years earlier, but about starting a new chapter by consolidating two existing households. It was surprisingly emotional, for consolidation is attended by evaluating and letting go. Items you don't need or that can be upgraded or replaced are left behind, hopefully to the benefit of someone who can use them.

Another lesson, and one that doesn't require a major move to learn, is that households evolve. New interests based in new tastes emerge, while others fall to the wayside. And the fact is that, even though we evaluate the benefits of purchases before deciding for or against them and we take care of our household inventory, nothing lasts forever. Appliances and electrics break down and the usability of tools, ironically, can dull through usage.

Those dynamics highlight the importance of the practice, longstanding in our household, of evaluating a potential purchase by weighing cost against actual and potential usability. We determine potential for return just as a broker does when evaluating investments, for that is what an item for the household is: an investment. The practice of consideration before purchase has the potential to maximize the household budget, because while nothing last forever, good investments will not only justify their costs but, over time, pay for themselves through usage. In a reasoned, balanced household budget, major purchases don't need to be regretted or routinely replaced, which makes room for smaller ones to be no big deal.

Here is Urban Home Blog's updated guide to kitchen tools and electrics. This isn't meant to replace or override suggestions from the previous kitchen guides but to supplement them based on routine evaluation, changing tastes and needs, and newer or different options becoming available in the marketplace. As always, this is a list of suggestions and recommendations, based on my ongoing experience as a homekeeper and lifestyle author. None of the below is a compensated endorsement.

Kitchen Electrics and Tools, Part Two

I had never so much as touched a slow cooker, but the shifting needs of our household from work schedules to Doctor's Orders necessitated revisiting my approach to getting dinner on the table. From the very first recipe I tried, I understood why slow cookers are such a valuable partner in the kitchen. The work week is taxing enough that having dinner ready when we get home qualifies as a bona fide blessing. Once I adjusted my morning routine to preparing the ingredients for dinner alongside making breakfast, it truly made workday evenings better. Of the slow cookers I tried, I found that both the industry standard Crock Pot and somewhat fancier Cuisinart PSC-350 Programmable Slow Cooker performed best. The former is ideal for smaller portions of simple suppers -- important for a two-person family -- and the latter is invaluable for larger or more complex recipes. In fact, as a bonus that I hadn't considered, the larger Cuisinart model is helpful for weekend cooking, especially during a weekend heavy with projects or for Sunday Supper with friends.

Another electric I hadn't particularly considered, but that impressed me once I tried it, was a panini press. Panini, the flat pressed sandwiches from European roadsides, have become ubiquitous at the American lunch table. On the autostrada, panini are seared on iron pans or grates, often pressed by bricks. That preparation is not beyond the home cook, but it is most practical for professional kitchens. I was worried that a panini press couldn't deliver the right result: a sandwich that is packed with ingredients but light in texture rather than heavy or soggy. Cuisinart's GR-11 Grill Pan and Panini Press delivers just exactly the right pressure and cooking time to serve well-made panini. The trick is to pay attention to the original pressure action -- you will need to hold down the top for as much as a full minute, and pay attention to the cooking action on the grill. The plates get very hot, so that's to be taken into account during usage and the cool-down period. But once the plates are fully cooled down, removing and cleaning them for the next lunch time or simple supper is easy and foolproof.

Every kitchen needs nesting measuring cups and spoons; I buy inexpensive ones in metal and food-grade non-toxic plastic and keep a few sets on hand. Also invaluable is Pyrex Prepware spouted measuring cup; it is useful to have both the 2- and 1- cup measures. Many recipes, notably for canning and preserving and for portion control, measure ingredients in ounces or grams. Use a kitchen scale for these. A kitchen scale should be intuitive to use, with simple instructions and a clear, easily understood display. Ozeri Touch Professional Kitchen Scale provides all of this with durability and at reasonable cost. Note that most widely available kitchen scales top off at 11 - 12 pounds.

Wooden cutting boards are a kitchen standby, often to the point that some families have heirlooms of sturdy hardwood and ambered shellac. I'm not so fortunate; moreover, I have found that, as indispensible as they are, wooden cutting boards show their wear and for both usability and safety should be replaced every couple of years. For that reason, I buy quality boards but try not to spend too much on them. On Ikea runs, I stock up on Sgogsta chopping boards in a variety of sizes, which I store until it's time to rotate them into usage. All wooden kitchen and dining implements require care beyond soap and hot water. Regularly treat everything from wooden cutting boards to wood-handled serveware with Howard Butcher Block Oil.

Along with measuring and chopping ingredients, you've got to clean and mix them. Colanders are as ubiquitous to the kitchen as are the measuring cups above, and ideally they are just as populous. We use metal colanders in three sizes from two- to eight-cup; these are widely available in department- and hardware stores. An in-sink colander is indispensable for everything from prepping large quantities of stew vegetables to draining the cucumbers for tzatziki. Ikea's Idealisk in-sink colander is inexpensive, durable, and strong enough not to lose its shape even under a tumble of potatoes. It is also roomy -- such a bonus that after rinsing lettuces I often mix salad right in the colander.

As noted in the column s about stocking the urban pantry, glass canning jars rotated out of the canning bath are a better way to store most pantry staples than plastic or the store packaging. Keep a supply of lids and rims, and label each jar with its contents and date obtained. Print Urban Home canning labels for the lids, or use a washable wine glass writer to label directly on the glass. One exception is coffee. As noted in the column about coffee and tea, store coffee in airtight coffee canisters with an easy-lock lid, such as Airscape coffee canisters. Spices and spice blends should be kept in smallish amounts to maximize their freshness; Ikea's Ratjan spice jars are the right size.

Storage applies not just to pantry shelf but to counter top. John will tell you that nothing brings out the fussbudget in me like the sight of potato chip bags, boxes of crackers or cookies, or other food packaging lying about. He's more easygoing than that, but in the spirit of compromise we open boxes of granola bars, breakfast biscuits, and other grab-and-go snacks and put a selection of them in a vintage kitchen bowl that resides on the counter. It's good for being aware of what we eat, and it keeps kitchen collectibles in service without undue strain on their viability. Along with the bowl, we keep Le Parfait Terrines filled with trail mix, spiced almonds, and, upon occasion, candy -- M&Ms for John, cinnamon disks for me.

We love a good pizza, and still the best tool I've found for cleaving that pie is Bialetti Pizza Chopper. Keep it sharpened with the knife sharpener that should be in your knife drawer, and like those knives handle it carefully and store it safely when it's not in use. They're not really tools or electrics, but Crate and Barrel's pizza plates and pizza shakers are inexpensive, stylewise ways to dress up pizza night whether you're cooking from scratch or serving from a delivery box. Before that Parmesan is grated, it's a wedge, and with the exception of water-soaked cheese or some dry ones, cheese should not be stored in plastic containers, wrap, or bags. You can store cheese in parchment paper, but I like Murray's Cheese Papers, whose coated interior protects the flavor and aroma of most cheeses, from mushroom-bloomy Brie to the stinkiest Stilton.

Cheese and wine are as central to California living as are sun and surf. Two tools vital for wine service are a good waiter's corkscrew like Vigneto Waiter's Friend, and a spring-pull wine opener such as the Rabbit. A bottle of wine should be drunk after opening. When there is any left, the best option is to fit the lip of the bottle with a Rabbit bottle sealer and to use that wine for cooking. If you wish to preserve wine in its bottle for drinking, use Vacu Vin Vacuum Wine Saver with the Rabbit bottle sealer mentioned above and drink it within a day. To clean stemware, I use Stemshine and a Brushtech Sommelier's brush for washing, and hang the rinsed classes on an Airtech Air Dry positioned over a drying mat. Finally, regarding wine storage, click here to learn about recommendations for wine coolers.