Kay Ewing's Everyday Gourmet Cooking School, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, recipes, cookbook, cookbooks, cooking classes

WHAT'S COOKING!

MY FAVORITE GADGETS

I inherited this kitchen gadget thing from my mother. She is known around our family as the "Gadget Queen" because she has always loved kitchen gadgets and has accumulated enough over the years to fill a small room at the Smithsonian. I am slowly working my way up to her numbers. My husband now refers to me as the Gadget Princess. Kitchen gadgets are fun and occasionally so useful that you wonder how you managed without them. Here are a few of my favorites that we have used in classes.

Created by a Baton Rouge engineer, the Mini-Measure is not only cute but extremely useful. It is a liquid teaspoon/tablespoon-measuring cup. It looks like a shot glass but is marked for up to 6 teaspoons in 1 teaspoon increments. It is also marked in 1/2 tablespoon increments, up to 2 tablespoons, in 1/4 oz. increments up to 1 ounce and in milliliters, from 5 ml. up to 30 ml. A lot of people use it as an accurate measuring device for administering medication to children. I find it much easier to use than measuring spoons. They are not expensive and are available at the Panhandler.

A second gadget that I use frequently is the
Microplane Zester. This is the easiest zester that I have ever use. It is a 12-inch stainless steel tool that will finely grate the skin of lemons, oranges and limes to produce the finest gratings of zest. I also use it to grate hard cheese. We carry the one with the handle at The Panhandler which I find easiest to use.

The stainless steel long & narrow measuring spoon is a gadget that I find useful for measuring herbs and spices. The narrow, rectangular design is ideal for these narrow jars. They are heavy duty and will last a lifetime. I use a set from Endurance.

A simple and useful gadget I have used in many classes is the Bakeware Buddy Plastic Knife. You never have to worry about scratching your pans when you cut cakes, brownies or cookies with this gadget. I know I sound like a late night TV commercial but this is a good product and like the others is simple and efficient. That is always the quality in good and useful gadgets, simple and efficient. Similar to a good man!