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The Kyocera Ceramic Mandoline is featured today on Daily Grommet, check it out in the video above or click thru to their site for more info. KitchenArts has partnered with Grommet to fulfill orders, you can buy it here for $24.95. Here's my lead in quote from their site:
The Kyocera Mandoline has become one of my kitchen staples. It's adjustable to four different thicknesses ideal for thin slicing veggies for salads and stir frys; I've also found it useful for shaving parmesan cheese and chocolate. Use it on garlic and shallots too, but watch your fingers! The blade is super sharp. Made of ceramic, it will retain good-as-new cutting abilities for years as long as it's treated properly: try to avoid the dishwasher, and store it in such a way that the blade doesn't get knocked around. Highly recommended by local chefs and national publications alike, this tool is hard to beat.
New Item! In this vid Michele tests the new Cuisipro Decorating Pen. Fill it with your favorite sauce and decorate plates, pastries, etc. as easily as writing with a thick pen. We tested it with ketchup...but I'd rather see it full of chocolate sauce! First person to bring a cupcake into the store gets a decorating pen to take home and test themselves. Watch the video for details! Available for $9.95, in store and online.
Twist Biodegradable Cleaning Cloths and Sponges: Another DailyGrommet feature available at KitchenArts. One reusable Twist Clean sponge cloth outlasts 17 rolls of paper toweling, and yet it’s made of natural fibers and is totally biodegradable when you’re done with it. Check the vid, we're partnering with Grommet to offer a pack of Twist products for $15, order them here.
And we have a winner! Patrice from the Fenway brought us an ear of corn this morning, so we immediately made her run the new Kuhn Rikon Corn Zipper over it. Check the video and see! Patrice got hers for free, the rest of y'all will have to fork over $11.95 if you want one.
Another new item, another fan challenge: We need to test out the new wide Kuhn Rikon Corn Zipper. First person to bring an ear of corn into the store for us to zip gets to keep the Corn Zipper. (I know it's not really corn season yet...do your best) Ready, set....GO! The corn zipper retails for $11.95. It's available online here.
I just came across Bruce Tretter's site Gotta Eat, Can't Cook. He's a self-taught cook out in Westborough Mass. who has started up a cooking basics channel including video demonstrations and tips. In the vid above he talks about hand held or "draw through" knife sharpening. Good advice,and good chopping technique! The white sharpener in his vid is an EZ-Sharp, one of my favorites because ANYBODY can make almost any knife sharp in moments...but Bruce rightly warns against overuse of carbide sharpeners like the EZ-Sharp. They'll wear your knife down quickly if you're not sparing! Regardless, it's the best selling sharpener here at KitchenArts. We carry them in black only, $14.95.
Chef'N's Emulstir salad dressing mixer is a pretty nifty new item here at KA. Forget shaking and stirring your salad dressings in some drippy bottle--with this mixer you just squeeze the handle to blend the dressing, and store leftovers in the fridge. Nice! Check out this video of Michele showing you how it's done. Available in our online store, $14.95.
I just took a web order for 20 of these things to ship down to Texas...someone's gonna have fun down there. This fork looks normal enough when you take it out of the package and put it at your place setting, but when you extend it (kinda like a radio antenna) and reach across the table you'll get some shouts of surprise. It opens up to over two feet long! I made the mistake of giving these to my kids...turned into a sword fight and tears. Adult supervision required. Order here for $5.95 each.
'Tis the season for lobstah! Last summer Zyliss came out with this nice set of seafood picks and they were a big hit. Tines on one end and a scoop sorta thing on the other with a rubberized grip in the middle so yer buttery fingers don't slip. Excellent. $11.95 for a set of 4.
Over the long weekend I was at my parent's lake house, using the ancient and nasty peeler that's been in the drawer there since my grandmother's day. Yuck! Time to provide an upgrade. This $11.95 Kyocera ceramic peeler is super sharp and has a non-rusting ceramic blade that I hope will stay in good shape for the next generation...
Having trouble getting the kids to put dinner in their mouths? These nifty eating utensils might help. Durable fork, spoon and "pusher" (ideal for mashed potato and gravy irrigation projects) have no moving parts and make eating fun...though they might just encourage kids to play with their food (that's what seems to happen in my house). Available in sets of three for $17.95 or individually at $5.95 a piece.
This nifty tool is one of those things I thought nobody needed, but it's turned into one of our fastest sellers here at KitchenArts. And now I'm hooked too, 'cuz I love avocados. First, you slice an avocado in half with a knife and pull out the pit (do this by sticking the edge of the knife into the pit and twisting until the pit pops out, see the demo vid below), then you run the Flexicado down the length of the sliced halves. You'll end up with perfect peeled slices of avocado...all ready for your sandwich or whatever. Yum. And yeah, it works on all sizes of avocado. That's why it's called Flexicado, see? $6.95 online or in the store.
Ok, so it's like 100 billion degrees in Boston today (borrowing some language from my daughter) and I'm thinking I might need a set of these Water Bottle Ice Cube Trays. That's right...they make long skinny ice cubes that fit through the neck of a water bottle or narrow thermos. Another item made of silicone, so very flexible and easy to get cubes (tubes?) out of. Available in blue (shown) or pink, set of two for $9.95.
ATTENTION! Here's this year's stocking stuffer:
Throw away your nasty old metal steamer...you know, the one with the metal leaves falling off? And the loose foot? Yeah, that one. These silicone steamers flex to fit most saucepans (up to 4 quarts), have stay-cool handles that make them easy to lift out of pots, and integrated feet that will never come off. A stainless steel disc encased in the base gives it rigidity. Nice!
Available here in Frosted Clear, Red, and Green: $11.95
These cute silicone egg poachers really work! Or so says the article in last week's Boston Globe:
"Many cooks leave egg poaching to the professionals because it's so hard to get right at home. That's why a simple pair of silicone cups from Greenfield-based Lamson & Goodnow HotSpot Silicone seems like such an ingenious invention. The EggShell poacher, shaped to resemble a cracked egg with one half white and the other bright yellow, looks like a child's toy. And it's child's play to use. Coat the inside of a cup with oil, crack an egg into it, and place it in a pot of boiling water (the cup will float). Cover with a lid, wait four to six minutes, then slide a perfectly poached egg onto your plate. Eggs Benedict can't be far behind."
People always want to know the difference between Cherry Pitters and Olive Pitters. This vid should help a bit (despite our use of a fake cherry!) Yes, a cherry pitter will pit olives--if you're careful. But if you want to do a bunch of olives fast, the olive pitter is much easier to use. An olive pitter will not, however, pit cherries--they usually smoosh. At last! Enlightenment. Olive pitter available online: $7.95
Ahh, the Benriner. Yet another example of cheap is good. The Benriner does not have all the functionality of more expensive mandolines (no french fry blade, no waffle cuts) and the finger guard is worthless, but if what you need is veryfine ("superfine") to medium slices and/or fine juliennes, this is the thing. We sell more of these than all other mandoline styles combined. $29.95 in our online shop.
There are a few julienne peelers on the market, but this one from Swiss manufacturer Kuhn-Rikon is the beauty. Works great on carrots, 'cukes, etc. For full length juliennes without a mandoline it has become a summertime staple. Available from us for $12.95, click here.
