- 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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Trudeau Mixing Bowls - T60Why It's Cool: Microwave safe, dripless pour spouts, slick interior for easy emptying, and Non-skid, non-scratch base designed for angle usageHow could a set of mixing bowls be a Cool Tool? We all use mixing bowls … of various shapes and sizes and materials … and sometimes we even have more than one set, to cover...
Trudeau Silicone Muffin Pan - T61Why It's Cool: A muffin pan with the structural and cooking benefits of metal and the non-stick and flexibility benefits of silicone.Ever since silicone muffin pans were first introduced, I thought the idea was brilliant and kept buying and trying them, usually with disappointing results. They were either...
Progressive Nut Chopper - P16Why It's Cool: Easily chops even the toughest nut to produce evenly chopped nuts for great cooking and presentation.Nuts add such great flavor to recipes. And with all the health interest in nuts these days, they belong in almost every diet. (See our Cool Tip: Nuts for Nuts!) So we know the...
Kyocera Advanced Ceramic Knives - K20Why It's Cool: The sharpest, easiest cutting, least contaminating knives you'll ever ownKnives have been a part of my life since my earliest memories … I love knives, and I’ve been cast as “The Knife Guy” in our business. My collection includes knives from...
Kyocera Hand-held Ceramic Slicers (Mandoline) - K21 - K22Why It's Cool: Easy, smooth, fast slicers that just work perfectly!You know how there are just some tools that you reach for time after time, because they are so useful; as a matter of fact, they rarely see the inside of the drawer, because...
Lékué Silicone and Ceramic Spring Form 9" Pan - L16Why It's Cool: Even cooking, easy clean-up, easy release, ready to serve, more compact storage.What I love about a springform pan is that it hugs your batter until it becomes a cake, and then, without regret, it lets it go. OK, maybe that’s too much personification for a...
Progressive Prokeeper Canisters - P11Why It's Cool: Smart canisters: each one has its own special features that make it incredibly usefulMost storage containers are nothing to get excited about. You want them to be functional (hold what they are meant to contain) and pretty unobtrusive. You may buy them once and...
Cuisipro Silicone Slotted Spoon - C56Why It's Cool: Heat resistant, beveled edge to get into corners, deep bowl is perfect for retrieving all kinds of food.It's rare that I go ga-ga over something as simple as a slotted spoon, but in this case, this spoon is sooo well designed, my reaction is justified. We’ve all used a lot of...
blomus Basic Large Butter dishWhy It's Cool: Simple, elegant design that goes beautifully from refrigerator to tableThere are “basics” in every kitchen: those tools that you always need, and use constantly. But often these are so simply utilitarian that they also are boring to look at: they...
Cuisipro Greek Yogurt / Yogurt Cheese Maker - C64Why It's Cool: Turn your plain homemade or store bought yogurt into rich thick Greek yogurt or even thicker yogurt cheese.Greek yogurt is all the rage these days, and for good reason! It’s so much thicker and creamier than regular yogurt that it feels almost sinful...but it isn’t. Greek yogurt...