The Cooking Dish

The 50+ Best Kitchen Gifts for the Cook In Your Life

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Once again the Winter holidays are right around the corner, and my kitchen begs for some holiday food and cheer. I swear last winter just ended. With one blink I’ve aged an entire year, and my belt is one notch tighter. Too bad there’s no reversal for that whole age thing.

As the temperature drops and my kids start to bundle up in their cute little coats, I find myself drawn to the kitchen more than usual. It could be that I enjoy the warmth of the oven, or that the chilly months are filled to the brim with nostalgia. Only now do I fully understand and appreciate the time my mom spent in her kitchen canning cider, baking pies, frosting cookies, and heating chocolate for our frosted and red kid noses. I think I will have succeeded if my kids can remember their childhood the way I remember mine.

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Book Review: An Edge in the Kitchen by Chad Ward

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This year I decided to spend my birthday money on kitchen stuff that I’ve had my eyes on. I wound up with some awesome kitchen tools and some more books which I’ve been wanting to read and study for a while, among those books was An Edge in the Kitchen: The Ultimate Guide to Kitchen Knives by Chad Ward (affiliate link). Using a 5-star rating method, I’d give it a 4 out of 5; using a 10-star rating method, I’d give it a 7 out of 10.

Chad Ward is a knife nerd, seriously; his kitchen knife expertise makes those of us who frequently use our kitchen knives and already know a moderate amount about them realize that we’ve been playing in the kiddy pool most of our lives. Although his book has quite a bit of “geek speak” in it as it relates to kitchen knives, metallurgy, and whatnot, it’s a pleasure to read and is easy to understand. And, as Chad says, once you learn the terminology you can impress all your friends and the guy behind the knife counter with your wisdom (extra bonus!).

The hard part now is figuring out where to begin…
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Nonstick Pans: Top 10 Rules for Using Them

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Note: Post updated 25 January 2016. Nonstick pan pictures coming soon!

It seems that all of us have a few nonstick pans lying around, and some of them are super old. Most of them are ones we picked up on the cheap from Target or Bed, Bath and Beyond. I think I’m still using one from 2003 that’s all scratched up and wobbles. Seriously, why do I even keep it around?

Pan manufacturers have upped their game in the past few years, creating super hard non-stick coatings that are scratch resistant. So much so, that you can get away with using metal utensils in them… or so they claim. I guess time will tell. These ones usually cost a pretty penny more.Continue Reading