Gift Guide 2020: Cooking!
This year was the year I got very into cooking. In my previous, pre-pandemic life, I’d be sure to pick up some lunch or dinner when I was out running an errand or whatever, and now?! Now I have, unpredictably, become a “we have food at home” person. SHOCKING. I always loved baking, but now I like cooking. I try new things. I like experimenting in the kitchen. Truly who am I. Anyway, here are some gifts that any at-home cook would love, according to me, a person who has been cooking regularly for maybe 14 months.
You can hover over the above image to be linked to all the gifts mentioned, or read on for a few thoughts and feelings about these fantastic, handpicked gifts
I broke two food processors this year. TWO! By the end of the unnecessarily long process of getting a replacement, breaking it, having two broken food processors in my small house for over a month… I was fed UP. But I still needed a food processor. So instead of thinking in terms of, “Which one is on sale at Target?” I started to think in terms of, “Which one is the BEST?” The best one is this Cuisinart. Even if it wasn’t deemed the best by Wirecutter, my go-to source for shopping advice that I take sometimes, I’ve also seen it on EVERY food show. Sohla uses one! It’s not cheap, but it is worth every penny. (A gift card for <$200 toward this glorious machine would be just as thoughtful a gift, IMHO!)
I told you about the most expensive thing I love, now for the cheapest. This Spoonula from Target costs $5, and is one of my favorite kitchen tools. It’s good for just about everything. I own two, because if one is dirty but I want to use it I am BEREFT. It is great for scrambling eggs, making mac and cheese, stirring batter, and probably many tasks I haven’t even thought of yet. If Target ever stops making this spoonula, I mean first of all please don’t, but if they DO, I hope I can have some advanced warning so I can buy as many as I possibly can so can use it for the rest of my life.
Aprons are hard to buy if you have a human body. WHO are all these aprons made for? No idea. The game changer for me was discovering Japanese style aprons, which are essentially tie-less smocks. You don’t have to tie anything, adjust anything, you just drape yourself in a linen sack and go about your business. There are fancy ones out there, like the one pictured, but if you’re looking for cheap I’d recommend Amazon or Etsy. I was so enamored with this one while I was making this post that I bought it immediately.
I do a lot of Googling measurement conversions while I’m baking. You can get a lot of cheat sheets in different forms to keep around your kitchen, so you’re not constantly Googling mid-bake. There are decals to stick inside your cabinets, you can get it printed on an apron, I’ve even seen a cross stitch pattern you can make. But I don’t like any of them (I actually kind of like the cross stitch pattern, but the fonts on those decals send a chill up my spine). This minimalistic print - which you can get for different kinds of measurements - is the only one I’ve found that I would actually put in my home.
I love a pinch bowl. They are endlessly useful. One of my favorite places to get tiny bowls is, weirdly, Anthropologie. My favorite pinch bowls were an impulse buy from the Anthro sale room, and now that I know how often I use them, I want to go back in time and buy the entire stock (I have three, it’s fine). These mini bowls are colorful, fun, and have endless uses. If you don’t already have tiny bowls in your life, trust me when I say you are missing out.
I didn’t know I needed a pastry blender until I had one, and now I know that they’re useful for more than just making pastry. I have this OXO one, because it’s the one Deb Perelman likes. I use it to make pastry, but also to mush up bananas for banana bread, or fruit for a crumble. It makes so many jobs easier, and it can go in the dishwasher. A must-have.
