Knives!
I spent years baking and cooking using a fork in the absence of a mixer. I had three pots/pans, three mixing bowls, and tableware for four. Now I have a food processor (two actually), immersion blender, blender, stand-up mixer, electric griddle (for lefse and tortillas!), nineteen mixing bowls, and tableware for at least eight people. I have a family of two. Excessive? Likely. Kitchen gadgets are always handy gifts for the person that cooks, and companies keep churning out new gadgets and devices that simplify some process we evidently painstakingly struggled through before. Some gadgets are awesome (my egg timer!) and some are really unnecessary (apple slicer? avocado slicer? I’m not that lazy). How do you know what is a kitchen staple worth buying and what is something you could do without? How do you know what is worth splurging on and what isn’t?
Of every item in my entire kitchen…the one thing I would never part with is my knives. Even including my Fiesta and Pyrex and Kitchen Aid. They are my most treasured, my most valued and life-changing kitchen gift I’ve ever received. I’d always had hand-me-down or cheap knives which was no big deal. They’re knives and they cut things, and that was all that mattered. Then on Mother’s Day 2008 I got my first fancy knife. It’s Sha Ra Ku Mono, it’s only available in Seattle, and it changed the cutting game forever! It was as if I had never truly sliced and diced before. It slices through skins of fruits and veggies like a hot knife through room temperature butter. LOVE. I got another one for Mother’s Day this year…and I asked Santa to bring me a serrated knife for Mother’s Day this year too! ;) These are my pretties….
We loves them, my pretties. I would pet them, but they bite.
Point being, go forth and spoil thyself with fancy cutlery!